Agent WranglersSCL-41Recommended
Scale up before a peak you know is coming
Before a launch, a campaign or another dated peak, raise the minimum number of copies and the database size to the planned peak. Lower them again after.
How to do it
Autoscaling reacts in minutes, but a campaign email or a press story brings everyone at once. The Google SRE book reports launch spikes up to 15 times higher than first estimated. Size the new minimum from the load you plan for, plus headroom. Write the change and its start and end times in code, as a scheduled scaling action, and put it on the launch checklist. Ask for provider quota raises days before. Fill the caches before the start, and send a big email campaign in batches over an hour. The everyday scaling rules are in Scale on the resource that runs out.
How to check
Every dated peak on the launch checklist has a planned minimum and a start time. At each start time in the last 12 months, the scaling history shows at least that many copies running.
Sources
Related rules
- INF-88 Track cloud quotas before they block a scale-up in Infrastructure and environments
- SCL-3 Write down the load you plan for in Scaling
- OPS-39 Keep headroom in Operations and observability
- OPS-38 Walk through a launch checklist before users arrive in Operations and observability
- SCL-30 Scale on the resource that runs out in Scaling
For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/scaling/load-balancing-and-autoscaling/scale-before-known-peaks">Agent Wranglers scaling playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.