Flux7 Blog

Auto Scaling – Amazon Compute Services – Glossary

Auto Scaling allows scaling of Amazon EC2. This feature of Amazon EC2 allows automatic allocation or removal of resources based on the actual needs at any given time. The number of instances increases during demand hikes and reduces when the demand falls.

Auto Scaling comes as part of the Amazon CloudWatch service. It’s applicability is significant in applications that has usage variability on an hourly, daily or weekly basis.

Features:

1. When demand increases, scales out amazon EC2 instances.

2. When demand subsides, shuts down unused Ec2 instances.

3. Dynamic Scaling based on CloudWatch metrics

4. Replace unhealthy or not in reach instances to maintain a higher availability of applications

5. Notifications via Amazon SNS – Simple Notification Service on any auto-scaling actions made

Cost:

Auto Scaling is a feature of Amazon CloudWatch and comes at no additional costs.