AWS users have long have the ability to set resources to scale, depending on workloads. But with Auto Scaling ability, it's becoming the first that automates the scaling across its services, from a single console.
What Auto Scaling does, is providing a unified interface where AWS users can control scaling on all AWS services, to automatically tamp up or decrease the computational resources to optimize for cost and availability. "This new service unifies and builds on our existing, service-specific, scaling features," said Jeff Barr, AWS' chief evangelist, in a blog post.
This includes a unified scaling across EC2 Auto Scaling groups, EC2 Spot Fleets, ECS tasks, DynamoDB tables, DynamoDB Global Secondary Indexes, Aurora Replicas, as well as Elastic MapReduce and the Amazon CloudWatch monitoring service.
Using the target tracking feature introduced back in 2017, users can easily choose the metric to scale the resources.
This functionality can certainly make things easier for users to manage their cloud infrastructure, helping companies to better realize the potential of the cloud.
Basically, the Auto Scaling ability takes previous auto-scaling functionality specific to each of these services, and put them into one place where users can deploy from one single spot. What this means, Amazon is making things less complicated for developers and AWS administrators to manage their cloud resources, saving time and money in the process.
Previously, users need to set an alarm, or create complex scaling actions for each individual service.
But with Auto Scaling, users can manage them with a point-and-click approach to scaling, the post said.
"You no longer need to set up alarms and scaling actions for each resource and each service. Instead, you simply point AWS Auto Scaling at your application and select the services and resources of interest," explained Barr.
Using the Auto Scaling Console, users can simply clicks on the stack what they wish to scale before choosing their desired resources and scaling strategy. Auto Scaling will then propose a scaling plan, which the user can review before approving, the post said.
According to the post, the Auto Scaling feature should also limit some of the drawbacks previously associated with certain scaling thresholds.
"In addition to optimizing for availability, cost, or a blend of both, you can also set a custom scaling threshold," the post said. "In each case, AWS Auto Scaling will create scaling policies on your behalf, including appropriate upper and lower bounds for each resource."
Initially, the AWS Auto Scaling feature is available in the U.S. East (Northern Virginia), U.S. East (Ohio), U.S. West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Singapore) regions.