Auto Scaling for Amazon EC2 in the AWS Management Console
We are pleased to announce that it’s now even easier to use Auto Scaling to manage your Amazon EC2 capacity, and to maintain availability of your applications. Starting today, you can use the AWS Management Console to create and update Auto Scaling groups, launch configurations, and scaling policies.
To get started, log in to the Amazon EC2 console and choose "Auto Scaling Groups" in the panel at the left, or visit: http://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home#AutoScalingGroups.
First, create an Auto Scaling group starting from customizable templates based on your Amazon Machine Image (AMI), known as launch configurations. Next, specify how many instances to run. Auto Scaling will launch and maintain them as a group, provisioning instances when you need them while keeping them balanced across Availability Zones and replacing unhealthy ones.
You can also create scaling policies that adjust your group size dynamically in response to Amazon CloudWatch metrics. Even if your application runs on a single instance, launching it into an Auto Scaling group can help you keep it available by replacing it when it fails status checks.
For more information, see Get Started with Auto Scaling Using the Console in the Auto Scaling Developer Guide.