On December 10th, Amazon announced that the Auto Scaling feature is now easily configurable in the AWS Management Console.
Amazon AWS Auto Scaling enables you to automatically launch or terminate Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances based on user-defined policies, health status checks, and schedules.
You can now create Auto Scaling Groups through the console user interface rather than having to create a JSON template. You can configure a launch configuration from a list of pre-built Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) or use your own AMIs as templates for machines to launch on demand based on server status, health, and CloudWatch metrics.
A baseline set of resources can be readily maintained and capacity can grow based on demand in the public cloud or in your virtual private cloud (VPC). VPCs are useful to logically isolate and secure compute resources in an ip range that you define. The auto scaling group resources can even span multiple availability zones for the highest reliability.
For example, you can scale your computing resources:
- Dynamically based on conditions specified by you (for example, increasing CPU utilization)
- According to a schedule defined by you (for example, every day at 12 noon)
- Guarantee at least two servers are running in two different availability zones.
Autoscaling ensures that the resources in your Auto Scaling Group are running and healthy. If an unhealthy instance is found, the instance is terminated and a new one is automatically launched.
You can even have your configuration request spot-instances using cost-effective pricing options based on demand and availability.
AWS Auto Scaling combined with AWS Elastic Load Balancer is a wonderful solution to building extremely scalable and available solutions in the cloud.
Amazon now will now enter into a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with companies and solution providers who want to process Protected Health Information (PHI) using Amazon Web Services.
We’re looking forward to trying out creating a test Auto Scaling Group soon!
