resource quotas
**Resource quotas** is the **policy limits that cap how much compute, memory, or storage a user or team can consume** - quotas prevent monopolization and enforce predictable multi-tenant capacity governance.
**What Is Resource quotas?**
- **Definition**: Hard or soft upper bounds on allocatable resources within scheduler domains.
- **Quota Types**: GPU count, CPU cores, memory, storage, job concurrency, and queue occupancy limits.
- **Enforcement**: Scheduler rejects, delays, or downscales jobs exceeding defined quota policies.
- **Elastic Option**: Soft quotas may allow temporary borrowing when idle capacity is available.
**Why Resource quotas Matters**
- **Fair Access**: Prevents one team from consuming disproportionate shared cluster capacity.
- **Predictability**: Teams can plan around guaranteed baseline resource availability.
- **Cost Governance**: Quota boundaries align infrastructure usage with budget ownership.
- **Operational Stability**: Reduces contention spikes that can destabilize cluster performance.
- **Strategic Allocation**: Supports priority distribution between production-critical and exploratory workloads.
**How It Is Used in Practice**
- **Policy Design**: Set quota levels from historical demand, business priority, and budget constraints.
- **Borrowing Rules**: Define safe over-quota borrowing and reclaim behavior for soft quota models.
- **Review Cadence**: Adjust quotas periodically based on utilization trends and roadmap changes.
Resource quotas are **a core fairness and governance mechanism for shared training clusters** - clear quota policy keeps capacity distribution predictable and sustainable.