Scaling based on predictions

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You can configure autoscaling for a managed instance group (MIG) to automatically add or remove virtual machine (VM) instances based on increases or decreases in load. However, if your application takes a few minutes or more to initialize, adding instances in response to real-time changes might not increase your application's capacity quickly enough. For example, if there's a large increase in load (like when users first wake up in the morning), some users might experience delays while your application is initializing on new instances.

You can use predictive autoscaling to improve response times for applications with long initialization times and whose workloads vary predictably with daily or weekly cycles.

When you enable predictive autoscaling, Compute Engine forecasts future load based on your MIG's history and scales out the MIG in advance of predicted load, so that new instances are ready to serve when the load arrives. Without predictive autoscaling, an autoscaler can only scale a group reactively, based on observed changes in load in real time. With predictive autoscaling enabled, the autoscaler works with real-time data as well as with historical data to cover both the current and forecasted load. For more information, see How predictive autoscaling works and Checking if predictive autoscaling is suitable for your workload.

Before you begin

• If you want to use the command-line examples in this guide, install the Google Cloud CLI or launch Cloud Shell.
• Read about autoscaler fundamentals.
• If you haven't already, then set up authentication. Authentication is the process by which your identity is verified for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:
  

  Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

  Console

  When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.

  gcloud

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

     gcloud init

     Note: If you installed the gcloud CLI previously, make sure you have the latest version by running gcloud components update.
  2. Set a default region and zone.

  REST

  To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.

  Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

  gcloud init

  For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

Pricing

Predictive autoscaling is free of charge. However, if you enable predictive autoscaling to optimize for availability, you pay for the Compute Engine resources that your MIG uses.

Note: Depending on your current set up, enabling predictive autoscaling might increase your costs. Predictive autoscaler starts VM instances earlier, and might run VMs for a longer period of time. Use predictive autoscaling on MIGs where you need to improve availability by keeping utilization below the target.

Limitations

• Predictive autoscaling works only with CPU utilization as the scaling metric. Cloud Load Balancing or Cloud Monitoring metrics are not supported.
• Compute Engine requires 3 days of CPU-based autoscaling history before it can generate predictions.
• Predictions are based on weekly and daily load patterns. Compute Engine doesn't predict monthly, annual, or one-time events, and it doesn't predict load patterns that are shorter than 10 minutes. You can use schedule-based autoscaling to request capacity for one-time or other load patterns.

Suitable workloads

Predictive autoscaling works best if your workload meets the following criteria:

• Your application takes a long time to initialize—for example, if you configure an initialization period of more than 2 minutes.
• Your workload varies predictably with daily or weekly cycles.

If your service takes a long time to initialize, your users might experience service latency after a scale-out event, that is, while the new VMs are provisioned but not yet serving. Predictive autoscaling takes into account your application's initialization time and scales out in advance of predicted increases in usage, helping to ensure that the number of available serving instances is sufficient for the target utilization.

To preview how predictive autoscaling can affect your group, see Checking if predictive autoscaling is suitable for your workload.

Enabling and disabling predictive autoscaling

You can enable predictive autoscaling when scaling based on CPU utilization. For more information about setting up CPU-based autoscaling, see Scaling based on CPU utilization.

If your MIG has no autoscaler history, it can take 3 days before the predictive algorithm affects the autoscaler. During this time, the group scales based on real-time data only. After 3 days, the group starts to scale using predictions. As more historical load is collected, the predictive autoscaler better understands your load patterns and its forecasts improve. Compute Engine uses up to 3 weeks of your MIG's load history to feed the machine learning model.

Note: Google is continually improving and updating the machine learning algorithm used by predictive autoscaling.

Permissions required for this task

To perform this task, you must have the following permissions:

• compute.autoscalers.update on the group's autoscaler
• compute.instanceGroupManagers.use on the group

Console

1. In the console, go to the Instance groups page.

   Go to Instance groups

2. From the list, click the name of an existing MIG to open the group's overview page.

3. Click Edit.

4. If no autoscaling configuration exists, under Autoscaling, click Configure autoscaling.

5. Under Autoscaling mode, select On: add and remove instances to the group to enable autoscaling.

6. Specify the minimum and maximum numbers of instances that you want the autoscaler to create in this group.

7. In the Autoscaling signals section, if a CPU utilization metric doesn't yet exist, add one:

   1. Click Add a signal.
   2. In the Signal type drop-down, select CPU utilization.
   3. Enter the Target CPU utilization that you want. This value is treated as a percentage. For example, for 75% CPU utilization, enter 75.
   4. Under Predictive autoscaling, select Optimize for availability to enable predictive autoscaling.
      • Alternatively, if you want to disable the predictive algorithm and use only the real-time autoscaler, select Off.
   5. Click Done.

8. Under Initialization period, specify how long it takes for your application to initialize on a new instance. This setting informs the predictive autoscaler to scale out further in advance of anticipated load, so that applications are initialized when the load arrives.

9. Click Save.

gcloud

When setting or updating a MIG's autoscaler, include the --cpu-utilization-predictive-method flag with one of the following values:

• optimize-availability: to enable the predictive algorithm
• none (default): to disable the predictive algorithm

Note: To check if a group has an existing autoscaling policy, and to make a note of any settings that you want to replicate when using the set-autoscaling command, review your group's existing configuration.

If CPU-based autoscaling is not yet enabled for the group, you must enable it. You can use the set-autoscaling command to configure a group's autoscaling policy from scratch. For example, the following command shows how to configure autoscaling with the following settings:

• Predictive autoscaling enabled.
• Target CPU utilization of 75%.
• The maximum number of instances set to 20.
• An initialization period (--cool-down-period) set to 5 minutes. This setting informs the predictive autoscaler to scale out 5 minutes in advance of anticipated load, so that applications are initialized when the load arrives.

gcloud compute instance-groups managed set-autoscaling MIG_NAME \
  --cpu-utilization-predictive-method optimize-availability \
  --target-cpu-utilization 0.75 \
  --max-num-replicas 20 \
  --cool-down-period 300

If CPU-based autoscaling is already enabled for the group, use the update-autoscaling command to enable the predictive algorithm:

gcloud compute instance-groups managed update-autoscaling MIG_NAME \
  --cpu-utilization-predictive-method=optimize-availability

REST

When creating or updating an autoscaler, include the predictiveMethod field in the request body with one of the following values:

• OPTIMIZE_AVAILABILITY: to enable the predictive algorithm
• NONE (default): to disable the predictive algorithm

Note: To see if a group has an existing autoscaling policy, review your group's existing configuration.

If the group has no existing autoscaling configuration, do the following:

• For a regional MIG: call the regionAutoscalers.insert method
• For a zonal MIG: call the autoscalers.insert method

If the group already has an autoscaling configuration, do the following:

• For a regional MIG: call the regionAutoscalers.patch method
• For a zonal MIG: call the autoscalers.patch method

If CPU-based autoscaling is not yet enabled for the group, you must enable it.

For example, the following request patches an existing autoscaler resource to enable CPU-based autoscaling with the following settings:

• Predictive autoscaling enabled.
• Target CPU utilization of 75%.
• The maximum number of instances set to 20.
• An initialization period (coolDownPeriodSec) set to 5 minutes. This setting informs the predictive autoscaler to scale out 5 minutes in advance of anticipated load, so that applications are initialized when the load arrives.

PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/regions/REGION/autoscalers/

{
  "name": "AUTOSCALER_NAME",
  "target": "https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/regions/REGION/instanceGroupManagers/MIG_NAME",
  "autoscalingPolicy": {
    "cpuUtilization": {
       "utilizationTarget": 0.75,
       "predictiveMethod": "OPTIMIZE_AVAILABILITY"
     },
    "maxNumReplicas": 20,
    "coolDownPeriodSec": 300
  }
}

Checking if predictive autoscaler is enabled

To view a MIG's current autoscaling configuration, see Getting a MIG's properties.

Configuring predictive autoscaling

For more information about how to configure the target utilization, minimum and maximum number of instances, and the initialization period, see Scaling based on CPU utilization. When you configure these options, the predictive autoscaler works to maintain all instances at the target utilization level that you set, within the minimum and maximum bounds of the group, in the same way that a real-time autoscaler does.

Use the initialization period setting to account for the time it takes for your application to initialize. This setting influences how far in advance the predictive autoscaler starts new instances ahead of predicted increase in load, so that your application is ready to serve when the load arrives.

Checking if predictive autoscaling is suitable for your workload

To see if predictive autoscaling might improve your application's availability, you can compare the performance of your group's current CPU-based autoscaling configuration against predictive autoscaling. You don't need to enable predictive autoscaling in order to make the comparison.

For more information about workloads that are suitable for predictive autoscaling, see Suitable workloads.

Checking for overloads

Your autoscaled MIG is overloaded when its average CPU utilization exceeds your target. To check if your autoscaling configuration resulted in overloaded VMs during the last 7 days, and to see if predictive autoscaling can reduce overloads, complete the following steps:

1. In the console, go to the Instance groups page.

   Go to Instance groups

2. Click an existing MIG for which CPU-based autoscaling is configured. The group's overview page opens.

3. Click Edit.

4. In the Autoscaling section, under Autoscaling signals, expand the CPU utilization section, then click See if predictive autoscaling can optimize your availability.

5. Based on data for the last 7 days, the table shows how many VMs were used per day and how many VMs were overloaded per day for the following rows:

   • Current autoscaling configuration: shows how the autoscaler performed based on the autoscaler's configuration over the last 7 days.
   • With predictive autoscaling set to "Optimize for availability": shows how the autoscaler would have performed if predictive autoscaling was enabled over the last 7 days.

You can use the "Number of VMs used per day" as a proxy for costs. For example, to reduce the daily number of overloaded VMs, the predictive autoscaler might create VMs earlier and run them for longer, which results in additional charges.

Monitoring and simulating predictive autoscaling

You can visualize the historical size of your group using Cloud Monitoring. The monitoring graph shows how your autoscaling configuration scaled your group over time, and it also shows how predictive autoscaling, if enabled, would have scaled your group.

For groups with predictive autoscaling disabled, you can use this tool to simulate predictive autoscaling before enabling it.

1. In the console, go to the Instance groups page.

   Go to Instance groups

2. Click an existing MIG for which CPU-based autoscaling is configured. The group's overview page opens.

3. Click Monitoring to see charts related to the group.

4. In the first chart, click its title and select Predictive autoscaling. This view shows the group's actual size as well as its predicted size.

5. You can select a different time range to see more history or zoom in into a period where demand grew to see how predictive autoscaling affects group size ahead of forecasted load.

How predictive autoscaling works

Predictive autoscaler forecasts your scaling metric based on the metric's historical trends. Forecasts are recomputed every few minutes, which lets the autoscaler rapidly adapt its forecast to very recent changes in load. Predictive autoscaler needs at least 3 days of history from which to determine a representative service usage pattern before it can provide predictions. Compute Engine uses up to 3 weeks of your MIG's load history to feed the machine learning model.

Predictive autoscaler calculates the number of VMs needed to achieve your utilization target based on numerous factors, including the following:

• The predicted future value of the scaling metric
• The current value of the scaling metric
• Confidence in past trends, including past variability of the scaling metric
• The configured application initialization period, also referred to as the initialization period

Based on such factors, the predictive autoscaler scales out your group ahead of anticipated demand.

Figure 1. Comparison of serving VMs with and without predictive autoscaling.

In figure 1, the blue line shows a growing demand for VMs. The black line shows the autoscaler's response: more VMs are added. However, for applications with long initialization times, the grey line shows that the added VMs require additional time before they are ready to serve, which can result in not enough serving VMs to meet the demand. With predictive autoscaling enabled, the predicted increase in demand and the long application initialization time are accounted for: the autoscaler responds by adding VMs earlier, resulting in a sufficient number of serving VMs. You can configure how far in advance new instances are added by setting the initialization period.

Real-time usage data

Predictive autoscaler can't determine a pattern for all future changes in usage based on historical data, so it works seamlessly with real-time data, too. For example, an unexpected news event might contribute to a spike in usage that couldn't have been predicted based on history alone. To handle such unpredictable changes in load, the predictive autoscaler responds as follows:

• It adapts its predictions: Predictions are recalculated constantly, within minutes, so they adjust to incorporate the latest data. The exact timing of adjustments to new patterns depends on, among other things, how repeatable the new pattern is and how large the difference is between the new pattern and past predictions.
• It yields to real-time data: The autoscaler's recommended number of instances, based on real-time values of the metric, is always sufficient to meet the group's target utilization. If the current value of a real-time signal is greater than the prediction, the current value of the signal takes priority over the prediction. As a result, MIGs that have predictive autoscaling enabled always have more availability than MIGs that don't.

Figure 2. Two charts show how predictions adapt to actual CPU usage.

In figure 2, the dotted yellow line shows the prediction at t₁. But the actual CPU usage, as shown by the solid blue line, is different than predicted. On the left chart, the actual CPU usage is higher than predicted. On the right chart, the actual CPU usage is lower than predicted. The dotted blue line shows the adjusted prediction.

Short, unpredictable spikes

Short, unpredictable peaks are covered in real time. The autoscaler creates at least as many instances as needed to keep utilization at the configured target, based on the current actual value of the metric. However, these instances aren't created in advance, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 3. A short, unpredictable spike causes the autoscaler to react in real time.

In figure 3, the solid blue line shows actual CPU usage. An unexpected spike in CPU usage could not be predicted. Because the autoscaler always monitors real-time data, it adds instances to accommodate the spike. The solid black line illustrates the autoscaler's reactive addition of VMs in response to the spike. The solid grey line shows the number of serving VMs. The grey line lags behind the black line due to the application's initialization time. In this scenario, the group is temporarily overloaded.

Sudden dips

Another type of unpredictable change in usage is a sudden dip, for example, a dip caused by a failure in part of the application stack. When that happens, the number of instances initially follows the forecast. However, over time, the forecast adjusts to the lower-than-forecasted usage, resulting in a scale-in. The exact timing of this adjustment depends on numerous factors, including: how often the pattern occurred in the past, how long the dip lasts, and how deep the dip is.

Figure 4. A sudden dip causes the predictive autoscaler to change its forecast.

In figure 4, the dotted yellow line shows the prediction at t₁. But the actual CPU usage, as shown by the solid blue line, fell lower than predicted. The dotted blue line shows the updated prediction, which was automatically adjusted after observing lower-than-forecasted usage. This results in the autoscaler removing instances following the standard stabilization period.

Historical data

Predictive autoscaler needs at least 3 days of historical load to start forecasting. If you have a new MIG that lacks historical data, Compute Engine scales your group reactively using real-time data until sufficient historical data becomes available. After 3 days, as Compute Engine collects additional usage data, the predictions improve.

If you update your application by creating a new MIG and deleting the old one—for example, a blue-green deployment—then your new MIG needs 3 days of historical load data before predictive autoscaling can start generating forecasts again. If you want to preserve load history across MIGs so that forecasts can start immediately when you create a new MIG, contact us to request instructions to join a private preview.

What's next

• Learn about managing autoscalers.
• Learn how autoscaler makes decisions.
• Learn how to use multiple autoscaling signals to scale your group.