Though Cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services provides Portal, API’s and Command line tools to scale out or down the number of EC2 instances in relation to load volatility, customers and IT managers quite often have lots of questions related to using these cloud resources more efficiently and in controlled manner.

Many customers have a misconception that deploying their application in AWS makes it a candidate for scaling, whereas they fail to understand that, to leverage Auto scaling effectively customer IT teams need to have in-depth architectural expertise of their Application and the AWS Infrastructure. We have observed many cases of badly configured Auto Scaling parameters which has increased the cost of infrastructure and caused revenue leakage to companies rather than reducing them.

Alternatively, we feel that customers should consider engaging cloud consulting companies that can guide you with the right recommendations on cloud adoption and scaling strategy in initial stages, so that you can accomplish your cloud adoption goal effectively and cost efficiently.

In this article we would like to share some insights on AWS Auto Scaling in the following perspectives:
• Need for Auto Scaling
• How AWS Auto scaling can help to handle the various load volatility scenarios
• How to configure an Auto scaling policy in AWS
• Things to remember before Scaling out and down
• Understand the intricacies while integrating Auto scaling with other Amazon Web Services
• Risks involved in AWS Auto scaling