Implement autoscale

  • 2 minutes

An Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets implementation can automatically increase or decrease the number of virtual machine instances that run your application. This process is known as autoscaling. Autoscaling allows you to dynamically scale your configuration to meet changing workload demands.

Illustration of a Virtual Machine Scale Sets implementation with a minimum of two virtual machines and a maximum of five machines that autoscale depending on workload demands.

Autoscaling minimizes the number of unnecessary virtual machine instances that run your application when demand is low. Your customers continue to receive an acceptable level of performance as demand grows and more virtual machine instances are automatically added.

Things to consider when using autoscaling

Review the following considerations about autoscaling. Think about how this process can benefit your company website implementation.

  • Consider automatic adjusted capacity. You can create autoscaling rules to define the acceptable performance for a positive customer experience. When the defined thresholds are met, the autoscale rules act to adjust the capacity of your Virtual Machine Scale Sets implementation.

  • Consider scale out. If your application demand increases, the load on the virtual machine instances in your implementation increases. If the increased load is consistent, rather than a brief demand, you can configure autoscale rules to increase the number of virtual machine instances in your implementation.

  • Consider scale in. On an evening or weekend, your application demand might decrease. If the decreased load is consistent over a period of time, you can configure autoscale rules to decrease the number of virtual machine instances in your implementation. The scale-in action reduces the cost to run your Virtual Machine Scale Sets implementation as you only run the number of instances required to meet the current demand.

  • Consider scheduled events. You can implement autoscaling and schedule events to automatically increase or decrease the capacity of your implementation at fixed times.

  • Consider overhead. Using Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets with autoscaling reduces your management overhead to monitor and optimize the performance of your application.