Scheduled scaling in AWS - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Scheduled Scaling with AWS Auto Scaling Group

📖 Scenario: You manage a web application hosted on AWS. To save costs during low traffic hours, you want to automatically reduce the number of servers running at night and increase them during the day.This is called scheduled scaling, where you set rules to change the number of servers at specific times.

🎯 Goal: Create an AWS Auto Scaling Group with a scheduled scaling policy that sets the desired capacity to 2 instances at 8 AM and scales down to 1 instance at 8 PM daily.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an Auto Scaling Group named MyAppASG with a launch configuration named MyAppLaunchConfig.

Define a scheduled action named ScaleUpMorning to set desired capacity to 2 at 8 AM UTC daily.

Define a scheduled action named ScaleDownEvening to set desired capacity to 1 at 8 PM UTC daily.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Many companies use scheduled scaling to save money by running fewer servers during low traffic times, like nights or weekends.

💼 Career

Understanding scheduled scaling is important for cloud engineers and DevOps professionals to optimize cloud infrastructure costs and performance.

1

Create Launch Configuration

Create a launch configuration named MyAppLaunchConfig with the AMI ID ami-0abcdef1234567890 and instance type t2.micro.

AWS

# Your code here

Need a hint?

The launch configuration defines the server image and size for your Auto Scaling Group.

2

Create Auto Scaling Group

Create an Auto Scaling Group named MyAppASG using the launch configuration MyAppLaunchConfig. Set the minimum size to 1, maximum size to 3, and desired capacity to 1. Use the availability zone us-east-1a.

AWS

resource "aws_launch_configuration" "MyAppLaunchConfig" {
  name          = "MyAppLaunchConfig"
  image_id      = "ami-0abcdef1234567890"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}

# Your code here

Need a hint?

The Auto Scaling Group manages the number of instances running based on your settings.

3

Add Scheduled Scaling Action to Scale Up

Add a scheduled action named ScaleUpMorning to the Auto Scaling Group MyAppASG that sets the desired capacity to 2 at 8 AM UTC daily. Use the cron expression 0 8 * * *.

AWS

resource "aws_launch_configuration" "MyAppLaunchConfig" {
  name          = "MyAppLaunchConfig"
  image_id      = "ami-0abcdef1234567890"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}

resource "aws_autoscaling_group" "MyAppASG" {
  name                      = "MyAppASG"
  launch_configuration      = aws_launch_configuration.MyAppLaunchConfig.name
  min_size                  = 1
  max_size                  = 3
  desired_capacity          = 1
  availability_zones        = ["us-east-1a"]
}

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Scheduled actions use cron expressions to run at specific times.

4

Add Scheduled Scaling Action to Scale Down

Add a scheduled action named ScaleDownEvening to the Auto Scaling Group MyAppASG that sets the desired capacity to 1 at 8 PM UTC daily. Use the cron expression 0 20 * * *.

AWS

resource "aws_launch_configuration" "MyAppLaunchConfig" {
  name          = "MyAppLaunchConfig"
  image_id      = "ami-0abcdef1234567890"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}

resource "aws_autoscaling_group" "MyAppASG" {
  name                      = "MyAppASG"
  launch_configuration      = aws_launch_configuration.MyAppLaunchConfig.name
  min_size                  = 1
  max_size                  = 3
  desired_capacity          = 1
  availability_zones        = ["us-east-1a"]
}

resource "aws_autoscaling_schedule" "ScaleUpMorning" {
  scheduled_action_name  = "ScaleUpMorning"
  autoscaling_group_name = aws_autoscaling_group.MyAppASG.name
  desired_capacity       = 2
  recurrence            = "0 8 * * *"
}

# Your code here

Need a hint?

This scheduled action reduces the number of instances at night to save costs.