VM Auto Scaling

Introduction

IONOS VM Auto Scaling is a cloud computing feature that modifies the number of Virtual Machine (VM) instances in your Virtual Data Center (VDC) automatically based on changes in demand (or the load on your VM).

Note: VM Auto Scaling is currently in the Early Access (EA) phase. We recommend keeping usage and testing to non-production critical applications. For more information, please contact your sales representative or customer support. EA rollout has its limitations. For more information, see limitations.

VM Auto Scaling automatically adds new VM instances when the load increases and reduces the number of instances when the load decreases. This automatic behavior constantly monitors the load and regularly scales the number of VM instances based on the policy threshold. The functionality ensures that the number of replicas in the group remains within the defined limitations.

To configure the feature, create a VM Auto Scaling Group with the following settings:

A group-wide scaling policy based on metrics.
Server replica configuration to automatically add or remove VMs based on demand.

VM Auto Scaling generates or deletes replicas based on the scaling policy, as needed by your application. The metric-based scaling policy tracks the CPU usage or the incoming and outgoing network packets, based on the configuration. When the existing VM instances hit the given threshold, it automatically initiates scaling, either scale in or scale out. Scaling in and scaling out is also called horizontal scaling because it adds additional VMs of the same size but does not increase the size of individual VMs by adding new cores or storage.

Additionally, you can replicate the configuration, such as the CPU architecture, number of cores, network, and group volumes.

VM Auto Scaling interfaces with other IONOS Cloud services, such as the Application Load Balancer (ALB), to maximize resource utilization, improve application scalability, and high-availability of multiple application servers due to server redundancy. You can specify how VM Auto Scaling replicas should be included in the ALB. When enabled, your application automatically scales based on requests from various sources. For example, if you pair VM Auto Scaling with an ALB and your application includes a web service, VM Auto Scaling ensures that your application has enough VM instances to process all requests.

VM Auto Scaling is cost-efficient and improves resource utilization. You pay only for the resources needed to run your application without any additional costs.

You can access and configure VM Auto Scaling via the Data Center Designer (DCD), Cloud API, and the SDK. To start using VM Auto Scaling, see Overview.