DevOps

The Top 5 Auto Scaling Software

Auto scaling software automatically adjusts computing resources based on demand, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency.

The Top 5 Auto Scaling Software Solutions include:
  • 1. AWS Auto Scaling
  • 2. Azure Monitor Autoscale
  • 3. Google Compute Engine
  • 4. Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler
  • 5. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Autoscaling

Auto scaling software optimizes cloud infrastructure resources and maintains cloud performance by automatically adjusting server capacity in response to fluctuating demand. By automatically scaling resources, you can ensure performance is uninterrupted when load demand increases, as well as saving unnecessary server costs when load demand decreases. The software ensures your applications have the right resources available to handle traffic at any given time.

Auto scaling software works by monitoring key metrics such as CPU utilization, memory usage, and network throughput. Based on predefined thresholds or policies, the software can trigger the addition or removal of resources dynamically, ensuring optimal performance and resource utilization. The solutions on this list are typically integrated with major cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, and are also capable of monitoring and managing resources across multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments.

Choosing the right solution for your organization can help you maximize the benefits of auto scaling, streamline your infrastructure management, and boost the resilience of your applications. This guide will present the top auto scaling software solutions, considering their features, ease of use, integrations, and effectiveness based on our in-depth analysis and user feedback.

AWS Logo

AWS Auto Scaling is a service that monitors applications and automatically adjusts capacity to maintain consistent performance at the lowest possible cost. It offers a user-friendly interface for creating scaling plans for resources such as Amazon EC2 instances, Spot Fleets, Amazon ECS tasks, Amazon DynamoDB tables and indexes, and Amazon Aurora Replicas. With AWS Auto Scaling, users can optimize performance, costs, or strike a balance between the two.

Getting started with AWS Auto Scaling is easy using the AWS Management Console, Command Line Interface (CLI), or SDK. There is no additional charge for using AWS Auto Scaling apart from the costs of the AWS resources used. The service also includes predictive scaling, which utilizes machine learning technology to automatically scale compute capacity in anticipation of traffic changes.

AWS Auto Scaling simplifies scaling by allowing users to set target utilization levels for multiple resources in one interface and offers smart scaling decisions that automate resource allocation in response to changes in demand. It also ensures optimal application performance and availability, even with fluctuating workloads. AWS Auto Scaling helps users pay only for the resources they need, removing excess capacity as demand drops to avoid overspending.

AWS Logo
Azure logo

Azure Monitor Autoscale is a service that automatically adjusts resources based on the load of an application, helping to balance performance and cost. By scaling horizontally, the service can add or remove virtual machines (VMs) based on predefined metric rules, such as CPU usage, queue length, and available memory. This approach allows businesses to manage resources effectively and maintain flexible operations in cloud environments. 

A key feature of Azure Monitor Autoscale is its ability to use predictive autoscale; this leverages machine learning to forecast CPU load based on historical usage patterns. This allows VMs to scale out in anticipation of demand, providing a seamless experience for users. Autoscale can also support custom metrics and scheduled rules, giving IT managers greater control over when scaling events occur.

Rules in Azure Monitor Autoscale can be metric-based or time-based, with up to 10 rules per profile. When scaling out, the service follows the OR logic operator, while scaling in adheres to the AND operator. Actions triggered by these rules include scaling resources, sending email notifications, and calling webhooks for added automation and integration with other Azure services, such as Azure Automation runbooks, Azure functions, and Azure logic apps.

Azure logo
Google Cloud Logo

Google Compute Engine is a secure and customizable compute service that enables teams to create and running virtual machines on Google’s infrastructure. It offers various machine types suited for different workloads, from general-purpose machines like the C3, E2, N2, N2D, and N1 series to Memory-optimized and Compute-optimized configurations, like M2, M1, C2, and C2D.

Key features of Google Compute Engine include predefined and custom machine types that allow for optimal configurations and cost balancing, spot machines for up to 91% reduced computing costs, and confidential computing to encrypt sensitive data during processing. Additionally, it provides scaling recommendations, ensuring efficient resource utilization.

Some other notable features of Google Compute Engine are live migration for virtual machines, VM Manager suite for managing Windows and Linux operating systems, instance groups for automatic virtual machine creation and deletion, and support for adding GPU and TPU accelerators to enhance computationally intensive workloads. With an extensive selection of machine types and customizable features, Google Compute Engine caters to diverse business requirements.

Google Cloud Logo
Kubernetes Logo

Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) automatically adjusts the number of pods in a workload resource, such as a Deployment or StatefulSet, to match the demand based on observed metrics. This enables horizontal scaling, where the system deploys more pods in response to increased load, as opposed to vertical scaling, which involves assigning more resources to existing pods.

HPA operates by periodically adjusting the desired scale of its target to match metrics like average CPU or memory utilization, or any custom metric specified by the user. It is implemented as a Kubernetes API resource and a controller, running within the Kubernetes control plane. The horizontal pod autoscaling controller adjusts the scaling at intervals determined by the horizontal-pod-autoscaler-sync-period parameter, with a default interval of 15 seconds.

During each interval, the controller manager queries the resource utilization against the metrics specified in each HPA definition, selects the target resource, and obtains the metrics from either the resource metrics API or the custom metrics API. One or more scaling policies can be specified in the ‘behavior’ section of the specification, where the policy allowing the highest amount of change is selected by default when multiple policies are present. This feature efficiently adapts the workload resources to fluctuating demands while optimizing resource utilization.

Kubernetes Logo
Oracle Logo

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a comprehensive cloud service that provides high-performance compute capabilities, storage capacity, and a flexible virtual network. This secure, hosted environment is designed for building and running various applications and services. OCI operates within 46 interconnected geographic regions, each offering a consistent set of over 100 services and consistent global pricing. In addition, OCI provides direct interconnection with Microsoft Azure and a full suite of Oracle Cloud Applications.

For efficient workload management, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Autoscaling can automatically adjust the number or lifecycle state of compute instances in an instance pool. This ensures consistent performance during high demand periods and cost reduction during low demand periods. Autoscaling can be applied based on either metric-based or schedule-based parameters and supports virtual machine (VM) and bare metal instance pools with standard, dense I/O, and GPU shapes.

OCI’s wide range of services includes containers, VMware, and AI, making it suitable for migrating, modernizing, building, and scaling IT workloads. The cloud infrastructure is built on a zero-trust architecture, ensuring tenant isolation and multiple layers of defense such as default data encryption and granular resource control. This secure infrastructure is designed to support both existing and new applications and data platforms.

Oracle Logo
The Top Auto Scaling Software