Vallic Cloud docs

Scaling

Three ways to give a machine more — resize it for good, let autoscale move it when it is busy, or upscale it for seven days — and how each is billed.

A machine is bought at a size, and that size is what the contract carries. There are three ways to give it more:

For Billed
Resize a size that should stay the new size, at its ordinary price, from the moment it starts
Autoscale (beta) traffic you cannot predict by the day, only while it is bigger
Upscale for seven days a week you know will be busy by the day, for the week

Autoscale and upscales are for Cloud Native production machines — the ones whose disk is not part of their size, see Machines — on a dedicated plan, and are on the Autoscale card of the project's Commercial terms. A day at a bigger size costs more than the same size bought for good: paying for a size you are not committed to is the premium, and the price list has it.

Resize for good

From Resize on the machine, on the environment's Resources tab or the machines page. Any machine, any environment:

  • Bigger on every machine; smaller only on a Cloud Native one, whose disk is not part of its type — see which way a machine can move.
  • The contract moves with it. The new size is billed from the moment the machine starts on it, for the rest of the period, at its ordinary price; a smaller one is credited the same way.
  • Machines doing the same job move together — the web servers behind a balancer, one at a time.
  • It is downtime for a few minutes on most machines; growing a Cloud Native machine is often done while it runs. The resize dialog says which before you confirm — see it is downtime.

Keeping the size autoscale or an upscale chose. If a machine is bigger than it was bought at just now and you want it to stay that size, open Resize and choose the size it is on. Nothing is resized: the size goes on the contract at its ordinary price, and the upscale ends. Choosing any other size resizes it and ends the upscale too. Either way, that day is billed as an autoscaled day.

Autoscale

Autoscale is in beta. It works and is billed as described here, and it is still being proven — so, like every beta feature, it is not covered by the uptime commitment.

Switch it on in the configurator, under Configure project, or later on the Autoscale card, and choose for each machine the largest size it may go to.

  • Up: when its CPU stays above 80% for 15 minutes, it is moved one size up — the next size with more cores — as far as the size you chose.
  • Down: after at least a day on the bigger size, once its CPU has stayed below 40% for an hour, it comes back one size, never below the size you bought. A database steps down in the project's maintenance window.
  • Which machines: production machines only, and only those that serve a page — the all-in-one machine, the web servers, the database and the load balancer. Several web servers resize one after another, so behind a load balancer the site stays up.

Switching it on costs nothing; only the time a machine spends bigger is billed.

Upscale for seven days

For a launch, a campaign, a week you know will be busy: choose a bigger size for a production machine on the same card, and it is moved there at once and put back to the size you bought seven days later — a database in the project's maintenance window. Choose no upscale to end one early, and it goes back straight away.

While an upscale lasts, autoscale, if it is on, may take the machine higher but never below the upscaled size.

Autoscale and upscales, either way

  • Only CPU and memory change. The disk stays the size it is.
  • Downtime. Scaling down restarts the machine, for about a minute. Scaling up does on some machines and not on others, and where it does, it is about a minute too. Support can tell you which yours are.
  • You are told each time a machine is moved, when an upscale ends, and when a busy machine wanted to go past the size you allowed.
  • Billed by the day, on your next invoice. Each day, or part of a day, a machine spends above the size you bought is charged at a premium over that size's daily price, in place of the size you bought; the price list has the rate.
  • Not on the shared plan, and not during a free trial.

Next

  • Machines — the two kinds, and which way each can move
  • Monitoring — what the machines are doing