# Cost-Efficient LLM Serving in the Cloud: VM Selection with KV Cache Offloading

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.11816 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.11816/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Serving systems and request scheduling, one of 12 directions in Efficient LLM inference and serving.
- Builds on 13 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Apr 2025.

## Placed in

- Efficient LLM inference and serving / [Serving systems and request scheduling](https://mlsanity.com/inference/serving-systems-and-request-scheduling/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [FlexGen: High-Throughput Generative Inference of Large Language Models with a Single GPU](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06865/) (2023)
- [Splitwise: Efficient generative LLM inference using phase splitting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.18677/) (2023)
- [Efficiently Scaling Transformer Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05102/) (2022)
- [DeepSpeed Inference: Enabling Efficient Inference of Transformer Models at Unprecedented Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.00032/) (2022)
- [M'elange: Cost Efficient Large Language Model Serving by Exploiting GPU Heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14527/) (2024)
- [ThunderServe: High-performance and Cost-efficient LLM Serving in Cloud Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09334/) (2025)
- [InstInfer: In-Storage Attention Offloading for Cost-Effective Long-Context LLM Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04992/) (2024)
- [LayerKV: Optimizing Large Language Model Serving with Layer-wise KV Cache Management](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.00428/) (2024)
- [Aladdin: Joint Placement and Scaling for SLO-Aware LLM Serving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06856/) (2024)
- [Revisiting Service Level Objectives and System Level Metrics in Large Language Model Serving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14257/) (2024)
- [DeepVM: Integrating Spot and On-Demand VMs for Cost-Efficient Deep Learning Clusters in the Cloud](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05861/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [KAIROS: Stateful, Context-Aware Power-Efficient Agentic Inference Serving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.16682/) (2026)
- [ChunkFlow: Communication-Aware Chunked Prefetching for Layerwise Offloading in Distributed Diffusion Transformer Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.11335/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

LLM inference is essential for applications like text summarization, translation, and data analysis, but the high cost of GPU instances from Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) like AWS is a major burden. This paper proposes InferSave, a cost-efficient VM selection framework for cloud based LLM inference. InferSave optimizes KV cache offloading based on Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and workload charac teristics, estimating GPU memory needs, and recommending cost-effective VM instances. Additionally, the Compute Time Calibration Function (CTCF) improves instance selection accuracy by adjusting for discrepancies between theoretical and actual GPU performance. Experiments on AWS GPU instances show that selecting lower-cost instances without KV cache offloading improves cost efficiency by up to 73.7% for online workloads, while KV cache offloading saves up to 20.19% for offline workloads.