IBM Cloud Docs
Scheduled scaling

Scheduled scaling

Use scheduled scaling for VPC to schedule actions that automatically add or remove instance group capacity, based on daily, intermittent, or seasonal demand. You can create multiple scheduled actions that scale capacity monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, or even every set number of minutes.

Scheduled scaling offers the following benefits:

  • Available in all MZRs
  • Supports image templates
  • Set one-time or recurring scheduled actions
  • Set scheduled actions for static or dynamic instance groups

Example scenario for creating a scheduled action

As an example, imagine that the fictitious company, Acme Web Retailer, experiences higher than normal levels of website traffic during Cyber Monday. To compensate for the increased traffic, they create a recurring scheduled action to scale up instance group capacity to 10 between the hours of 8:00 AM and 11:00 PM on Cyber Monday.

Creating a scheduled action with the UI

A scheduled action that targets membership_count is incompatible with an instance group that uses auto scale because when enabled, the auto scale manager controls membership_count.

For more information about auto scale, see Auto scale for VPC

Creating a one-time scheduled action

To create a one-time scheduled action, use the following steps.

  1. In the IBM Cloud console, go to Navigation Menu iconmenu icon > VPC Infrastructure VPC icon > Compute > Instance groups.
  2. Select the instance group that you want to create a scheduled action for by clicking its name.
  3. Click Scheduled actions.
  4. In the new screen, click Create
  5. Enter an appropriate name for the scheduled action.
  6. Select One time, then select the start date and time for your scheduled action.
  7. If your instance group is dynamic, enter a minimum and or maximum instance group size to apply when this action runs. If your instance group is static, enter the instance group size to apply when this action runs.
  8. Click Create.

Creating a recurring scheduled action

To create a recurring scheduled action, use the following steps.

  1. In the IBM Cloud console, go to Navigation Menu iconmenu icon > VPC Infrastructure VPC icon > Compute > Auto scale > Instance groups.
  2. Select the instance group that you want to create a scheduled action for by clicking its name.
  3. Click Scheduled actions.
  4. In the new screen, click Create
  5. Enter an appropriate name for the scheduled action.
  6. Click Recurring.
  7. Select a date and time to run the scheduled action by using the predefined options for each pattern section (Monthly, Days, Hours, Minutes). Or choose a custom schedule by clicking what months, days, hours, and minutes that you want the schedule to run. \n Alternatively, you can select a date and time schedule by entering a cron expression. Click Cron and enter an appropriate cron expression.
  8. If your instance group is dynamic, enter a minimum and or maximum instance group size to apply when this action runs. If your instance group is static, enter the instance group size to apply when this action runs.
  9. Click Create.

24 hours after a scheduled action reaches a final status, such as Completed, Omitted, or Failed, the action is marked for deletion.

Creating a scheduled action with the CLI

You can create a scheduled scaling action for your auto-scaled instances by using the IBM Cloud CLI.

Before you begin

Make sure that you set up your IBM Cloud® CLI environment and your IBM Cloud VPC.

To create a scheduled action by using the CLI, you must complete the following steps:

  1. Make sure that you have the required IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions to create instance group resources. For more information, see Required permissions for VPC resources.
  2. Create scaling policies to dynamically add or remove instances from your group based on the target utilization metrics that you define.

Create a scheduled action

Use the following command to create a scheduled action.

ibmcloud is instance-group-manager-action-create INSTANCE_GROUP MANAGER [--run-at RUN_AT | --cron CRON] [--membership-count MEMBERSHIP_COUNT | (--max-members MAX_MEMBERS --min-members MIN_MEMBERS)] [--name NAME] [--output JSON] [-q, --quiet]

Where:

  • INSTANCE_GROUP is the ID of the instance group.
  • MANAGERis the ID of the manager.
  • --run-at is the date and time that is specified for the scheduled action. The format is in ISO 8601 format. Example: 2024-03-05T15:31:50.701Z or 2024-03-05T15:31:50.701+8:00.
  • --cron is the cron specification for a recurring scheduled action.
  • --membership-count is the number of members in the instance group at the scheduled time.
  • --max-members is the maximum number of members in a managed instance group. Range 1-100.
  • --min-membersis the minimum number of members in a managed instance group. Range 1-100.
  • --name the name of the action.
  • --output: Specify output format, only JSON is supported. One of: JSON.
  • -q, --quiet: Suppress verbose output.

Update a scheduled action

Use the following command to update a scheduled action.

ibmcloud is instance-group-manager-action-update INSTANCE_GROUP MANAGER ACTION (--run-at RUN_AT | --cron CRON) [--membership-count MEMBERSHIP_COUNT | (--min-members MIN_MEMBERS --max-members MAX_MEMBERS)] [--name NEW_NAME] [--output JSON] [-q, --quiet]

Where:

  • INSTANCE_GROUP: is the ID of the instance group.
  • MANAGER is the ID of the manager.
  • ACTIONis the ID of the action.
  • --run-atis the date and time that is specified for the scheduled action. The format is in ISO 8601 format. Example: 2024-03-05T15:31:50.701Z or 2024-03-05T15:31:50.701+8:00.
  • --cron is the cron specification for a recurring scheduled action.
  • --membership-count is the number of members in the instance group that you want at the scheduled time.
  • --min-members is the minimum number of members in the instance group that you want at the scheduled time. Range 1-100.
  • --max-members: The maximum number of members in the instance group that you want at the scheduled time. Range 1-100.
  • --name is the new name of the instance group manager action.
  • --output specifies output format, only JSON is supported. One of: JSON.
  • -q, --quietsuppresses verbose output.

Delete a scheduled action

Use the following command to delete a scheduled action.

ibmcloud is instance-group-manager-action-delete INSTANCE_GROUP MANAGER ACTION [--output JSON] [-f, --force] [-q, --quiet]

Where:

  • INSTANCE_GROUP: is the ID of the instance group.
  • MANAGER is the ID of the manager.
  • ACTIONis the ID of the action.
  • --output specifies output format, only JSON is supported. One of: JSON.
  • --force, -f forces the operation without confirmation.
  • -q, --quietsuppresses verbose output.

Creating scheduled actions with the API

You can create a scheduled scaling action for your auto-scaled instances by calling the VPC API.

Create a scheduled action

The following example creates a scheduled action

curl -X POST "$vpc_api_endpoint/v1/instance_groups/$instance_group_id/managers?   version=2021-04-20&generation=2" -H "Authorization: $iam_token" -d '{
      "manager_type": "autoscale",
      "max_membership_count": 50
    }'

A successful response looks like the following example:

{
  "aggregation_window": 90,
  "cooldown": 300,
  "href": "https://eu-gb.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/instance_groups/   r018-7b3ac170-01f3-43d6-87ec-f0ed11ed3f60/managers/r018-4f2f7036-86b0-4d1b-a729-12357d45b00f",
  "id": "r018-4f2f7036-86b0-4d1b-a729-12357d45b00f",
  "management_enabled": true,
  "manager_type": "autoscale",
  "max_membership_count": 50,
  "min_membership_count": 1,
  "name": "my-manager",
  "policies": []
} created a scheduled action

Update a scheduled action

The following example updates a scheduled action.

curl -X PATCH "$vpc_api_endpoint/v1/instance_groups/$instance_group_id/managers/   $instance_group_manager_id/policies?version=2021-04-20&generation=2" -H "Authorization:    $iam_token" -d '{
      "metric_type": "cpu",
      "metric_value": 50
    }'

A successful response looks like the following example:

{
  "href": "https://eu-gb.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/instance_groups/   r018-7b3ac170-01f3-43d6-87ec-f0ed11ed3f60/managers/r018-4f2f7036-86b0-4d1b-a729-12357d45b00f/   policies/r018-02d7b6c3-e3c8-4569-ba6a-caa5d4d6146c",
  "id": "r018-02d7b6c3-e3c8-4569-ba6a-caa5d4d6146c",
  "metric_type": "cpu",
  "metric_value": 50,
  "name": "my-policy",
  "policy_type": "target"

Delete a scheduled action

The following example deletes a scheduled action.


curl -X DELETE "$vpc_api_endpoint/v1/instance_groups/$instance_group_id/memberships?   version=2021-04-20&generation=2" -H "Authorization: $iam_token"

No sample response available.