Release: Auto Scaling on 2014-01-02

This release of Auto Scaling adds support for creating launch configuration or Auto Scaling group using an Amazon EC2 instance, for attaching Amazon EC2 instances to an existing Auto Scaling group, and for describing the limits on the Auto Scaling resources.


Release Date: January 02, 2014
Latest Version: 2011-01-01
Created On: December 19, 2013
Last Updated: October 09, 2017


New Features

Feature Description
Support for using Amazon EC2 instance

You can now use an Amazon EC2 instance to perform the following actions:

  • Create a new launch configuration using the properties of the specified EC2 instance. For information see Create a Launch Configuration Using an Amazon EC2 Instance.

  • Create a new Auto Scaling group using an EC2 instance. When you use an EC2 instance to create a new Auto Scaling group, Auto Scaling automatically creates a new launch configuration using the properties of specified instance and associates the newly created launch configuration with the Auto Scaling group. For information see Create an Auto Scaling Group Using EC2 Instance.

  • Attach EC2 instances to your Auto Scaling group. You can now attach one or more EC2 instances to your existing Auto Scaling group. After the instances are attached they become a part of the Auto Scaling group. For information see Attach Amazon EC2 Instances to Your Auto Scaling Group.

View the limits for Auto Scaling resources

With this release, you can now call the DescribeAccountLimits Auto Scaling API to see the number of Auto Scaling resources currently allowed for your AWS account. For more information, see Auto Scaling Limits.

Improved support for Amazon EC2 block device mappings

You can now specify DeleteOnTermination, provisioned IOPs (Iops), and NoDevice block device mapping settings when creating launch configurations.

Known Issues

Issue Description Date
We no longer allow the ":" character in the name of any object.

You can no longer use the ":" (colon) character in the name of any object. This includes Launch Configurations, Auto Scaling groups, Policies, and any other named object.

2 December 2010
The "Cooldown" parameter is now called "DefaultCooldown."

The "Cooldown" parameter for the CreateAutoScalingGroup and UpdateAutoScalingGroup actions is now named "DefaultCooldown."

IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from a previous version, please be sure to update any calls that involve this parameter. Although the CLI and the SOAP protocol will return an error if you do not rename this parameter, the Query protocol will silently ignore the misnamed parameter.

2 December 2010
Trigger functionality has been redesigned to work closely with CloudWatch alarms.

You no longer create triggers with a single call to CreateOrUpdateTrigger. Instead, you create a trigger by combining two AWS features: a CloudWatch alarm (configured to watch a specified CloudWatch metric) and an Auto Scaling policy that describes what should happen if the alarm threshold is crossed. In most cases, you will need two triggers—one trigger for scaling up and another for scaling down.

2 December 2010
Migrating legacy triggers.

Auto Scaling does not permit using both a legacy trigger and the new alarms-based scaling system on an Auto Scaling group. To use the new scaling system you will have to migrate any legacy triggers to the new system. For detailed instructions on how to migrate legacy triggers, go to the following thread in the Amazon Web Services Discussion Forums: Migrating legacy Auto Scaling Triggers to the new, CloudWatch Alarm based scaling system.

2 December 2010
Administrative suspensions. Auto Scaling might, at times, suspend processes for Auto Scaling groups that repeatedly fail to launch instances. This is known as an "administrative suspension," and most commonly applies to Auto Scaling groups that have zero running instances, have been trying to launch instances for more than 24 hours, and have not succeeded in that time in launching any instances. To resume processes, whether the suspension was manual (using SuspendProcesses) or administrative, use either the ResumeProcesses API action or the as-resume-processes CLI command. 2 December 2010