How suspended processes affect other processes - Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
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How suspended processes affect other processes

The following sections describe what happens when different processes are suspended individually.

Launch is suspended

  • AlarmNotification is still active, but your Auto Scaling group can't initiate scale-out activities for alarms that are in breach.

  • ScheduledActions is active, but your Auto Scaling group can't initiate scale-out activities for any scheduled actions that occur.

  • AZRebalance stops rebalancing the group.

  • ReplaceUnhealthy continues to terminate unhealthy instances, but does not launch replacements. When you resume the Launch process, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling immediately replaces any instances that it terminated during the time that Launch was suspended.

  • InstanceRefresh does not replace instances.

Terminate is suspended

  • AlarmNotification is still active, but your Auto Scaling group can't initiate scale in activities for alarms that are in breach.

  • ScheduledActions is active, but your Auto Scaling group can't initiate scale in activities for any scheduled actions that occur.

  • AZRebalance is still active but does not function properly. It can launch new instances without terminating the old ones. This could cause your Auto Scaling group to grow up to 10 percent larger than its maximum size, because this is allowed temporarily during rebalancing activities. Your Auto Scaling group could remain above its maximum size until you resume the Terminate process.

  • ReplaceUnhealthy is inactive but not HealthCheck. When Terminate resumes, the ReplaceUnhealthy process immediately starts running. If any instances were marked as unhealthy while Terminate was suspended, they are immediately replaced.

  • InstanceRefresh does not replace instances.

AddToLoadBalancer is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling launches the instances but does not add them to the load balancer target group or Classic Load Balancer. When you resume the AddToLoadBalancer process, it resumes adding instances to the load balancer when they are launched. However, it does not add the instances that were launched while this process was suspended. You must register those instances manually.

AlarmNotification is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling does not invoke scaling policies when a CloudWatch alarm threshold is in breach. When you resume AlarmNotification, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling considers policies with alarm thresholds that are currently in breach.

AZRebalance is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling does not attempt to redistribute instances after certain events. However, if a scale-out or scale in event occurs, the scaling process still tries to balance the Availability Zones. For example, during scale out, it launches the instance in the Availability Zone with the fewest instances. If the group becomes unbalanced while AZRebalance is suspended and you resume it, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling attempts to rebalance the group. It first calls Launch and then Terminate.

HealthCheck is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling stops marking instances unhealthy as a result of EC2 and Elastic Load Balancing health checks. Your custom health checks continue to function properly. After you suspend HealthCheck, if you need to, you can manually set the health state of instances in your group and have ReplaceUnhealthy replace them.

InstanceRefresh is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling stops replacing instances as a result of an instance refresh. If there is an instance refresh in progress, this pauses the operation without canceling it.

ReplaceUnhealthy is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling stops replacing instances that are marked as unhealthy. Instances that fail EC2 or Elastic Load Balancing health checks are still marked as unhealthy. As soon as you resume the ReplaceUnhealthy process, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling replaces instances that were marked unhealthy while this process was suspended. The ReplaceUnhealthy process calls Terminate first and then Launch.

ScheduledActions is suspended

  • Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling does not run scheduled actions that are scheduled to run during the suspension period. When you resume ScheduledActions, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling only considers scheduled actions whose scheduled time has not yet passed.

Additional considerations

In addition, when Launch or Terminate are suspended, the following features might not function correctly:

  • Maximum instance lifetime – When Launch or Terminate are suspended, the maximum instance lifetime feature can't replace any instances.

  • Spot Instance interruptions – If Terminate is suspended and your Auto Scaling group has Spot Instances, they can still terminate in the event that Spot capacity is no longer available. While Launch is suspended, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can't launch replacement instances from another Spot Instance pool or from the same Spot Instance pool when it is available again.

  • Capacity Rebalancing – If Terminate is suspended and you use Capacity Rebalancing to handle Spot Instance interruptions, the Amazon EC2 Spot service can still terminate instances in the event that Spot capacity is no longer available. If Launch is suspended, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can't launch replacement instances from another Spot Instance pool or from the same Spot Instance pool when it is available again.

  • Attaching and detaching instances – When Launch and Terminate are suspended, you can detach instances that are attached to your Auto Scaling group, but while Launch is suspended, you can't attach new instances to the group.

  • Standby instances – When Launch and Terminate are suspended, you can put an instance in the Standby state, but while Launch is suspended, you can't return an instance in the Standby state to service.