Manage scaling groups

Introduction to autoscaling

To configure an automatic response to changing demands for resources, you can scale out VMs or scale them in, which is also called horizontal autoscaling. To scale out, the platform clones the base VM and deploys the clones. To scale in, the platform will delete clone VMs and undeploy the base VM. Scaling operations are subject to all standard platform constraints, such as privileges and allocation limits.

Screenshot: A scaling group with VMs deployed automatically.

• Limitations:

  • Autoscaling does not clone captured VMs, so to use scaling groups with a captured VM, create an instance and recreate the VM. Create instances to save VM disks to templates

  • VApp specs do not support scaling groups. See What do virtual appliance specs save and create

  • Scaling groups have aggregate alarms that are associated with the base VM. This means that you can push custom metrics for clone VMs but you cannot create alarms for cloned VMs that are part of a scaling group. 

• State of base VM: A scaling group with a deployed base VM would be destroyed if the base VM were deleted directly on the hypervisor. In contrast, a scaling group with an undeployed base VM is not vulnerable to interference at the hypervisor level

Automatically scale VMs

The platform enables you to automatically scale out (add more VMs) or scale up (add more resources to existing VMs).

To use autoscaling do these steps:

1. Create a base VM, which can be deployed or undeployed

2. Configure the VM and enable metrics

3. Define a scaling group with rules for scaling the VM.
   The checkbox to automatically create a scaling action, will create the following automatically:

   1. Standard alarms and alerts for the selected metrics

   2. Action plans with scaling actions for the VM and triggers for the action plans, which are monitoring alerts

   You can customize the elements the platform creates, or you can create your own configuration.

Related pages:

• Manage Scaling Groups

Define a scaling group

Configure automatic scaling actions

Trigger autoscaling

How the platform scales VMs

Perform maintenance on a scaling group

Display scaling actions for a scaling group

Display metrics for a scaling group

Add tags to a scaling group

Move a scaling group to another virtual appliance in the same virtual datacenter

Restrict a scaling group

Delete a scaling group

Manage scaling groups with the API