Cost incurred for idle databricks cluster runtime

nikhil_parab
New Contributor II

‎05-07-2026 06:53 AM

Hi Team,

I have created databricks finops dashboard and within that I have provided recommendations on cluster auto termination. But I wanted add one more column like how much we can save after reducing auto termination time. How can I add that in my dashboard? Please assist

 

This is my table.

Workspace

Cluster

Owner

Recommendation

XXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXX

NO ACTION NEEDED

XXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

ENABLE AUTO TERMINATION

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

NO ACTION NEEDED

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

REDUCE AUTO TERMINATION TIME TO 30 MINUTES

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

REDUCE AUTO TERMINATION TIME TO 30 MINUTES

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nayan_wylde
Esteemed Contributor II

‎05-07-2026 08:01 AM

For each cluster:

Savings = Avoidable Idle Time × Hourly Cost

Where:

  • Avoidable Idle Time (minutes) = estimated minutes the cluster kept running after it became idle, beyond the recommended termination window.
  • Hourly Cost = DBU cost + (optional) cloud compute cost per hour.

Most environments don’t have a clean “idle_started” event, so a robust method is:

Identify job activity or command activity windows
Find gaps between activity windows while the cluster was still running
Any gap longer than recommended auto-termination implies waste beyond the recommended threshold

Example definition
For each “running session” of a cluster:

If there is a gap between last activity and next activity (or shutdown) of G minutes
Then the avoidable portion is:

avoidable minutes=max⁡(0,  G−recommended_autoterm_minutes)\text{avoidable minutes} = \max(0,\; G - \text{recommended\_autoterm\_minutes})avoidable minutes=max(0,G−recommended_autoterm_minutes)

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nikhil_parab
New Contributor II
In response to nayan_wylde

‎05-20-2026 01:32 PM

Thank you @nayan_wylde  will you be able to provide query for this?

 

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