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A global e-commerce application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes during major sales events. The application is containerized and runs on Amazon ECS. To ensure high availability and responsiveness during these spikes, and to scale down efficiently when traffic subsides, which scaling strategy should be implemented?
- ATarget Tracking Scaling policy based on average CPU utilization
- BScheduled Scaling based on predictable traffic patterns
- CManual Scaling by adjusting desired task count
- DStep Scaling policy based on CPU utilization
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Target Tracking Scaling policy based on average CPU utilization
Target Tracking Scaling is the most effective strategy for handling unpredictable traffic spikes in containerized applications. It automatically adjusts the number of tasks to keep a specific metric, such as average CPU utilization, at a target value, ensuring responsiveness and efficient scaling both up and down.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Scheduled Scaling is for predictable traffic patterns, not unpredictable spikes.
- C. Manual Scaling is not suitable for unpredictable traffic spikes as it requires constant human intervention and cannot react quickly enough.
- D. Step Scaling can respond to spikes but requires tuning multiple thresholds and is less dynamic than Target Tracking for maintaining an optimal performance level.
Target Tracking Scaling
An Auto Scaling policy that adjusts the number of resources to maintain a specified metric (e.g., CPU utilization) at a target value, dynamically scaling up and down.
- Automatically maintains a target metric.
- Reacts to real-time workloads.
- Simplifies scaling configuration.
Memory trick: Track your target, and ECS will scale for you.