Auto-Scaling

Update May 2011: Now that AWS Route 53 can be used to allow an ELB to host a domain zone apex, the technique described here is no longer necessary. Cool, but not necessary. Someone really has to implement this. I’ve had this draft sitting around ever since AWS announced support for improved CloudWatch alerts and AutoScaling policies (August 2010), but I haven’t yet turned it into a clear set of commands to follow. If you do, please comment. ...

Here’s a quick tip from this thread on the AWS EC2 Developer Forums. If you experience the InsufficientInstanceCapacity: Insufficient Capacity error, you’ll be glad to know there are some strategies for working around it. Justin@AWS offers this advice: There can be short periods of time when we are unable to accommodate instance requests that are targeted to a specific Availability Zone. When a particular instance type experiences unexpected demand in an Availability Zone, our system must react by shifting capacity from one instance type to another. This can result in short periods of insufficient capacity. We incorporate this data into our capacity planning and try to manage all zones to have adequate capacity at all times. The following steps will ensure that you will have the best experience launching Amazon EC2 instances when an initial insufficient capacity message is received: ...