An HPE Private Cloud AI customer wants to prevent Airflow from consuming too many resources...

D is correct. Airflow pools provide a direct mechanism for controlling task concurrency. Each pool has a defined number of slots, and tasks assigned to that pool consume slots while they execute. Reducing the number of slots in the default pool therefore limits the number of tasks that can run simultaneously and places an upper bound on how aggressively Airflow can consume cluster resources across concurrent DAG activity.

Option A is not the supported control in this scenario; the Airflow UI does not serve as the general editor for executor-pod CPU and memory sizing. Option B is the opposite of the stated objective because enabling autoscaling can increase executor capacity in response to demand. Option C suggests changing framework values for executor resources, but HPE’s Airflow integration historically constrains those settings and the exam-tested method for limiting aggregate workload pressure is pool concurrency.

This is a scheduling-level safeguard rather than a Kubernetes quota. In a production environment, pool slots can be combined with platform quotas and workload resource requests to create layered control over resource consumption.

References/topics: Advanced HPE Compute Solutions, Rev. 26.21, Module 4 “Airflow” and Module 7 resource troubleshooting; HPE AI Essentials Airflow documentation, pool slots and maximum simultaneous jobs.