Auto Scaling:Enable the cost optimization feature for scaling groups of the Elastic Container Instance type

Billing principles

Benefits

Procedure

1. Create a scaling group that contains elastic container instances.
   For more information, see Step 1: Create a scaling group.
2. Create a scaling configuration for the scaling group that you just created.
   1. Find the scaling group and click Details in the Actions column.
   2. In the upper part of the page, click the Instance Configuration Sources tab.
   3. On the Scaling Configurations tab, click Create Scaling Configuration.
   4. On the page that appears, configure the parameters based on your business requirements and click Next: System Configurations.
      In this topic, two scaling configurations are created. The cost optimization feature is enabled in one scaling configuration and disabled in the other configuration.

      • For information about how to create a scaling configuration in which the cost optimization feature is disabled, see Create a scaling configuration (Elastic Container Instance).
      • To create a scaling configuration in which the cost optimization feature is enabled, perform the following steps:

        In the Basic Settings step, turn on Enable Cost Optimization in the Container Group Configurations section and specify the instance family that you want to use. For example, you can specify the enterprise-level instance family. For information about other parameter settings, see Create a scaling configuration (Elastic Container Instance).

        The following table describes the entry-level instance family, enterprise-level instance family, and credit entry-level instance family.

        Instance family	Description	Scenario	References
        Entry-level	Shared instance types. Instances of this level are the most cost-effective but may not consistently provide stable computing performance.	Instances of this level are suitable for business scenarios in which the CPU utilization is low.	Shared instance families
        Enterprise-level	Instances of this level provide stable performance and dedicated resources	Instances of this level are suitable for business scenarios that require high stability.	Overview of instance families
        Credit entry-level	Burstable instances. CPU credits are used to ensure the stability of computing performance.	Instances of this level are suitable for scenarios in which the CPU utilization is low but may fluctuate in specific cases.	Overview

   5. Confirm the parameter settings and click Create.
   6. In the message that appears, click Enable Configuration.
3. Create a scaling rule for the scaling group.
   For more information, see Create a scaling rule.

   Note You can create scheduled tasks and event-triggered tasks for a scaling group based on your business requirements. For more information, see Create a scheduled task and Create event-triggered tasks.
4. Enable the scaling group.
   For more information, see the "Enable or disable scaling groups" section in the Manage scaling groups topic.

Verify the results

The following figures show the difference between the scale-out results of the scaling group for which the cost optimization feature is disabled and the scaling group for which the cost optimization feature is enabled.

• If you apply the scaling configuration in which the cost optimization feature is disabled to a scaling group or the cost optimization feature does not take effect, Auto Scaling does not use the specified ECS instance type to create elastic container instances in the scaling group.
• If you apply the scaling configuration in which the cost optimization feature is enabled to a scaling group and the cost optimization feature takes effect, Auto Scaling uses the specified ECS instance type to create elastic container instances in the scaling group.

Compare the effects

You can call the DescribeContainerGroupPrice API operation to query the final cost of the elastic container instances that are created by Auto Scaling. In this example, the value of the TradePrice parameter is used as a reference. The value of the TradePrice parameter represents only the cost of the elastic container instances that are created by Auto Scaling in this walkthrough. The cost of elastic container instances for which the cost optimization feature takes effect varies based on your actual configurations.

In this case, the cost optimization feature reduced the cost of elastic container instances by 17%.