GitHub user yrenat created a discussion: Proposal: Automatically terminate idle 
Kubernetes Computing Units

## Background

When running Texera on Kubernetes, computing units (CUs) remain alive even 
after they become idle. Although keeping idle CUs can reduce startup latency 
for subsequent workflow executions, they continue consuming cluster resources 
unnecessarily when they remain unused for an extended period.

As a result, clusters may gradually accumulate idle computing units, reducing 
the amount of resources available for active workloads.

## Proposal

Issue https://github.com/apache/texera/issues/5362 proposes introducing an 
automatic cleanup mechanism for idle computing units.

The basic idea is to periodically check the status of running CUs and terminate 
those that have been idle for longer than a configurable timeout. This allows 
inactive resources to be reclaimed automatically while still giving users the 
benefit of reusing recently active computing units.

The timeout should be configurable so that different deployments can choose an 
appropriate balance between resource utilization and startup latency.

## Initial Scope

For this proposal, the implementation focuses on:

* adding a configurable idle timeout;
* periodically checking whether a computing unit has been idle beyond the 
configured threshold;
* automatically terminating eligible idle computing units;
* ensuring active computing units are unaffected.

This proposal intentionally focuses on basic idle cleanup. More advanced 
policies (for example, different timeout strategies or discussions based on 
frontend heartbeat signals) can be discussed separately if needed.

## Questions for Discussion

* Does periodically terminating idle computing units align with the intended 
Kubernetes resource management strategy?
* Is a single configurable timeout sufficient, or should different types of 
computing units have different timeout policies?
* Are there scenarios where idle computing units should intentionally remain 
alive and therefore be excluded from automatic cleanup?

I have  prepared an implementation of this proposal for reference in PR #6046.


GitHub link: https://github.com/apache/texera/discussions/6264

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