Pausing and resuming clusters allows developers to easily integrate MongoDB into DevOps workflows without always-on access to underlying data. This new feature, combined with Atlas's backup service, enables the creation of multiple environments for development and testing while minimizing costs. Paused clusters incur storage and backup charges but not compute instance hours. The M200 instance size on AWS offers 64 vCPUs, 256 GB RAM, and 1500 GB storage, making it suitable for demanding production workloads.