Talk presented at FOSDEM'14 about Autoscaling, general guidance of what autoscaling is and good practices and behaviours

1. Autoscaling Best Practices
FOSDEM’14
Marc Cluet
DevOps & Automation Advisory
Rackspace
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gozalewis/3422530465/

2. Who am I?!
Marc Cluet (@lynxman)
More than 16 years of experience as a
SysAdmin
Founding member of Juju and MAAS
while at Canonical
Leading a DevOps Engineering Team at
Rackspace
Likes DevOps, programming and long
walks on the beach
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3. What is Rackspace?!
Founded in 1998 in San Antonio, TX by
three guys that wanted to create a hosting
company
Home of Fanatical Support /o/
Second biggest Public Cloud in the world
OpenStack Project co-founder
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4. What is Autoscaling?!
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5. What is Autoscaling?!
WASTED!
$$$!
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6. What is Autoscaling?!
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7. What is Autoscaling?!
The ability to automatically or semiautomatically scale up and down a
group of servers based on
computing or traffic demand by
provisioning new services!
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8. RACKSPACE® HOSTING | WWW.RACKSPACE.CO.UK
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fischerfotos/7419253200/

9. Traffic Patterns!
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10. Traffic Patterns!
ON & OFF!
Analytics!
Banks/Tax Agencies!
Test environments!
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11. Traffic Patterns!
FAST GROWTH!
Events!
Business Growth!
Slashdot Effect!
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12. Traffic Patterns!
VARIABLE!
News & Media!
Event Registrations!
Rapid fire sales!
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13. Traffic Patterns!
CONSISTENT!
HR Application!
Accounting/Finance!
E-mail!
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14. RACKSPACE® HOSTING | WWW.RACKSPACE.CO.UK
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maximalideal/3356408693/

15. Autoscaling Methodologies!
Time Based!
Reactive!
Predictive!
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16. Time Based Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
Server
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17. Time Based Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
9:00am!
Server
Server
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18. Time Based Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Nov 1st!
Server
Server
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19. Time Based Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
Server
Server
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20. Time Based Autoscaling!
GOOD FOR!
On & Off!
Consistent!
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21. Reactive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
60%
Server
60%
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22. Reactive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
80%
Server
80%
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23. Reactive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
60%
Server
60%
Server
40%
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24. Reactive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
30%
Server
30%
Server
30%
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25. Reactive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
45%
Server
45%
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26. Reactive Autoscaling!
GOOD FOR!
Fast Growth!
Variable!
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27. Predictive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
Server
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28. Predictive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Forecasted!
Traffic!
Server
Server
+30%!
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29. Predictive Autoscaling!
Load
Balancer
Server
Server
Server
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30. Predictive Autoscaling!
GOOD FOR!
Fast Growth!
Variable!
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31. RACKSPACE® HOSTING | WWW.RACKSPACE.CO.UK
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samuraislice/3309481048/

32. Autoscaling Tools!
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33. Autoscaling Tools!
Amazon Cloudformation!
Based on Scaling Groups!
High/Low Watermark!
Scheduled Events!
Uses base image + CF!
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34. Autoscaling Tools!
Rackspace Autoscale!
Based on Scaling Groups!
High/Low Watermark!
Scheduled Events!
Uses Gold Image!
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35. Autoscaling Tools!
Rightscale Autoscale!
Based on Scaling Groups!
High/Low Watermark Quorum!
Scheduled Events!
Uses Rightscale scripts!
$$$!
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36. Autoscaling Tools!
Heat!
Based on Templates!
High/Low Watermark!
Scheduled Events!
Uses Heat Scripts!
DSL Compatible with CF!
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37. Autoscaling Tools!
Scryer!
Based on AI!
Predictive Fidelity model!
Feeds AWS API!
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38. Autoscaling Tools!
Your own!!
Collect your metrics!
!collectd, diamond, statsd!
Have a good metrics database!
!whisper, rrd!
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39. Autoscaling Tools!
Your own!!
Write your own autoscaling code!
!with message queues! :)!
!attached to your code!
!brain close to the centre of decision!
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40. RACKSPACE® HOSTING | WWW.RACKSPACE.CO.UK
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355318323/

41. Taking the most of it!
Beware of the Kraken!!
Autoscaling can be dangerous!
Have min-max allocations!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquidnight/5992114196/
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42. Taking the most of it!
Choose the right metrics!
Stay with basic metrics!
!CPU, mem, I/O disk/net!
Review autoscaling strategy with
metrics!
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43. Taking the most of it!
Choose your strategy!
Scale up early!
Scale down slowly!
Don’t apply the same strategy to all
apps!
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44. Taking the most of it!
Phasing in and Phasing Out!
Have in mind time to availability!
Have in mind also decommission time!
Golden Images can help speed!
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45. @lynxman!
http://slideshare.net/lynxmanuk/!
http://www.rackspace.co.uk/technicalservices/ !
!
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