Autoscaling in AWS Console

Great new addition to the AWS Management console. Can use the API (put in blog posts).

http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/12/aws-management-console-auto-scaling-support.html

Here are some other posts on auto scaling and using the auto scaling API:

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/12/autoscaling-commands-new-universal-cli.html

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/08/auto-scaling-scaling-group-and-policy.html

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/05/auto-scaling-based-upon-schedule.html

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/05/auto-scaling-script.html

http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/12/auto-scaling-removing-instances.html

AutoScaling commands : new universal CLI

Here is an example of creating an auto scaling group using the new CLI:

aws autoscaling create-launch-configuration --launch-configuration-name NiravTestASconfig --image-id ami-35792c5c --security-groups NiravTestSecGrp --instance-type t1.micro --key-name niravkothariaws

aws autoscaling create-auto-scaling-group --auto-scaling-group-name NiravTestASGrp --launch-configuration-name NiravTestASconfig --min-size 2 --max-size 4 --default-cooldown 300 --load-balancer-names NiravTestELB --tags Key=Name,Value=CreatedBYAS --availability-zones us-east-1c --termination-policies NewestInstance

ADDARN=`aws autoscaling put-scaling-policy --auto-scaling-group-name NiravTestASGrp --policy-name NiravTestADDPolicy --scaling-adjustment +1 --adjustment-type ChangeInCapacity --cooldown 300 | grep -i "PolicyARN" | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/"//g’`

DELARN=`aws autoscaling put-scaling-policy --auto-scaling-group-name NiravTestASGrp --policy-name NiravTestDELPolicy --scaling-adjustment -1 --adjustment-type ChangeInCapacity --cooldown 300 | grep -i "PolicyARN" | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/"//g'`

echo ARN for scale-up policy $ADDARN

echo ARN for scale-down policy $DELARN

aws autoscaling put-notification-configuration --auto-scaling-group-name NiravTestASGrp --topic-arn arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:228152208343:niravtestsns --notification-types autoscaling:EC2_INSTANCE_LAUNCH autoscaling:EC2_INSTANCE_TERMINATE

sleep 10s

Auto Scaling - removing instances

There are times when you need to scale down and auto scaling group. To find out the current configuration of your auto scaling group, issue this command:
aws autoscaling describe-auto-scaling-groups
            "AutoScalingGroupName": "reachforce-as-grp",

To scale down your configuration you can issue the commands to decrease the min and max size:
aws autoscaling update-auto-scaling-group --auto-scaling-group-name reachforce-as-grp --min-size 2
aws autoscaling update-auto-scaling-group --auto-scaling-group-name reachforce-as-grp --max-size 3

You will then see the instance go away on your AWS console.

Oracle RAC on AWS

Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) is not natively supported on AWS. The word natively is used because it is possible to run Oracle RAC in an AWS Direct Connect facility http://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/.

There are a number of options when migrating an Oracle RAC database to AWS.  The option you use depends upon the reason RAC is being used.  For HA and fail over, AWS offers multi-AZ capabilities which can provide the same level of service.  For very large databases that require high transaction through put that can not be achieved on a single instance database, Direct Connect would be the solution.  Details on these options are as follows:
1. RDS with multi-AZ :  Oracle RDS is the managed database service from AWS.  Oracle RDS has builtin multi-AZ capabilities.  Because RDS is a managed service, AWS takes care of installation, configuration and management of the secondary database, the replication between AZs, and the fail over and fail back of the database instance.
2. EC2 with multi-AZ :  Running on EC2 requires the customer or partner to install, configure, manage, and take care of the replication.    Oracle Data Guard or GoldenGate can be used for replication.
3. Direct Connect : The AWS partner Datapipe runs RAC in a managed service model using Direct Connect.

Note: Remember that AWS RDS only supports databases up to 6 TB in size. Note this number changed to 6 TB in June 2015 after being 2 TB. https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2015/06/amazon-rds-increases-storage-limits-to-6TB-for-piops-and-gp2/. Check the whats new web page for any updates related to Oracle on RDS.

Note:  The reason Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) is not supported on AWS is:
1. Multicast is not supported on the AWS network. An overlay network is possible on AWS: http://cloudconclave.blogspot.com/2013/06/overlay-networks-on-aws.html
2. AWS EBS is not a shared disk / clustered file system.
So, even if you use a solution such as Amazon EFS, GlusterFS, Zadara, SoftNAS, or custom NFS for shared disk you can not use RAC on AWS as you need multicast support.  More on Amazon Elastic File System (EFS): https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-elastic-file-system-shared-file-storage-for-amazon-ec2/ 

Horizontal Scaling of Oracle on AWS

Just came across this solution.
Parelastic: http://www.parelastic.com (MySQL only at this time)

I really enjoyed the 'sharding sucks' mantra.  Being an 'old school' Oracle guy, the new world answer to  database scaling is sharding...I think that is very naive.

I know of these two companies in this space as well:

Scalearc (MySQL and SQL Server)

Scalebase : http://www.scalebase.com (MySQL only at this time)