Scalability and Elasticity with EC2
Scalability is the ability to handle increasing load. Elasticity is the ability to scale automatically.
EC2 supports both vertical and horizontal scaling.
Vertical scaling:
- Change instance type.
- Limited by hardware constraints.
- Requires restart.
Horizontal scaling:
- Add more instances.
- Requires load balancing.
- Enables fault tolerance.
In production systems, horizontal scaling is preferred.
Auto Scaling Groups (ASG) automatically adjust the number of instances based on:
- CPU utilization
- Request count
- Custom metrics
Why this matters architecturally:
- Prevents overprovisioning.
- Reduces cost.
- Improves availability.
- Enables resilience.
Production insight:
Never rely on a single EC2 instance in a production environment. Use:
- Multiple Availability Zones
- Load balancers
- Health checks
- Auto Scaling policies
In this section, I learned:
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