Viewing EC2 Auto Scaling group recommendations
Amazon Compute Optimizer generates instance type recommendations for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling groups. Recommendations for your EC2 Auto Scaling groups are displayed on the following pages of the Amazon Compute Optimizer console.
-
EC2 Auto Scaling group recommendations
This page lists each of your current EC2 Auto Scaling groups, their finding classifications, current instance type(s), current hourly price for the selected purchasing option, and current configuration. The top recommendation from Compute Optimizer is listed next to each of your EC2 Auto Scaling groups, and it includes the recommended instance type, the hourly price for the selected purchasing option, and the price difference between your current instance type(s) and the recommendation. Use the recommendations page to compare the current instance type(s) of your EC2 Auto Scaling groups with our top recommendation, which can help you to decide if you should upsize or downsize your instances.
-
EC2 Auto Scaling group details
Depending on the specific EC2 Auto Scaling group, this page provides you with rightsizing recommendations and/or recommendations to scale in an idle group. It lists the specifications for each rightsizing recommendation such as the performance risk and hourly prices for the selected purchasing option. The details page also displays utilization metric graphs that can be used to compare the current EC2 Auto Scaling group with the projected utilization metrics for the recommendation option(s).
The recommendations are refreshed daily. They're generated by analyzing the specifications and utilization metrics of the current EC2 Auto Scaling group over the default lookback period of 14 days or a 32-day lookback period. You can extend the lookback period to 93 days if you enable enhanced infrastructure metrics. For more information, see Enhanced infrastructure metrics, , and Metrics analyzed by Amazon Compute Optimizer.
Keep in mind that Compute Optimizer generates recommendations for EC2 Auto Scaling groups that meet a specific set of requirements, recommendations could take up to 24 hours to be generated, and sufficient metric data must be accumulated. For more information, see Resource requirements.
Important
If you enable Cost Optimization Hub in Amazon Cost Explorer, Compute Optimizer uses Cost Optimization Hub data, which includes your specific pricing discounts, to generate your recommendations. If Cost Optimization Hub isn't enabled, Compute Optimizer uses Cost Explorer data and On-Demand pricing information to generate your recommendations. For more information, see Enabling Cost Explorer and Cost Optimization Hub in the in the Amazon Cost Management User Guide.
Contents
Finding classifications
The Finding column on the EC2 Auto Scaling groups recommendations page provides a summary of how each of your EC2 Auto Scaling groups performed during the lookback period.
The following findings classifications apply to EC2 Auto Scaling groups.
| Classification | Description |
|---|---|
|
Not optimized |
EC2 Auto Scaling groups that maintain a fixed pool of instances are considered not optimized when the group is either oversized or running workloads that might cause performance issues. EC2 Auto Scaling groups that scale dynamically or follow a fixed schedule of scaling events are considered not optimized when there are other instance types that can meet the demand at a lower cost. |
|
Optimized |
An EC2 Auto Scaling group is considered optimized when all specifications of your group, such as CPU, memory, and network, meet the performance requirements of your workload. For optimized groups, Compute Optimizer might recommend a new generation instance type. |
Estimated monthly savings and savings opportunity
Estimated monthly savings (after discounts)
This column lists the estimated monthly savings for the EC2 Auto Scaling group if you had used the recommended instance type(s) during the lookback period. After discount savings consider any Reserved Instances or Savings Plans pricing models that are active in your accounts. To receive recommendations with Savings Plans and Reserved Instances discounts, the savings estimation mode preference needs to be activated. For more information, see Savings estimation mode.
Note
If you don't activate the savings estimation mode preference, this column displays the default On-Demand pricing information.
Estimated monthly savings (On-Demand)
This column lists the approximate monthly cost savings for the EC2 Auto Scaling group if you had used Compute Optimizer’s recommendation during the lookback period, and purchased under the On-Demand instance pricing.
Savings opportunity (%)
This column lists the estimated monthly savings percentage of the current monthly cost that you can save by adopting the recommended instance type(s) for your EC2 Auto Scaling group. If savings estimation mode is activated, Compute Optimizer analyzes any Reserved Instances or Savings Plans pricing models that are active in your accounts to generate the savings opportunity percentage. If savings estimation mode isn’t activated, Compute Optimizer only uses On-Demand pricing information. For more information, see Savings estimation mode.
Estimated monthly savings calculation
For each recommendation, we calculate the cost to operate a new instance using the recommended instance type. Estimated monthly savings are calculated based on the number of running hours for current instances in the EC2 Auto Scaling group and the difference in rates between the current instance type and the recommended instance type. The estimated monthly savings for EC2 Auto Scaling groups displayed on the Compute Optimizer dashboard is a sum of the estimated monthly savings for all over-provisioned instances in EC2 Auto Scaling groups, in the account.
Amazon Graviton-based instance recommendations
When viewing EC2 Auto Scaling group recommendations, you can view the price and performance impact of running your workload on Amazon Graviton-based instances. To do so, choose Graviton (aws-arm64) in the CPU architecture preference dropdown. Otherwise, choose Current to view recommendations that are based on the same CPU vendor and architecture as the current instance.
Note
The Current price, Recommended price, Price difference, Price difference (%), and Estimated monthly savings columns are updated to provide a price comparison between the current instance type and the instance type of the selected CPU architecture preference. For example, if you choose Graviton (aws-arm64), prices are compared between the current instance type and the recommended Graviton-based instance type.
Inferred workload types
The Inferred workload types column on the EC2 Auto Scaling groups recommendations page lists the applications that might be running on instances in the EC2 Auto Scaling group as inferred by Compute Optimizer. It does this by analyzing the attributes of instances in the EC2 Auto Scaling group, such as the instance name, tags, and configuration. Compute Optimizer can currently infer if your instances are running Amazon EMR, Apache Cassandra, Apache Hadoop, NGINX, or PostgreSQL. By inferring the applications running on your instances, Compute Optimizer is able to identify the effort to migrate your workloads from x86-based instance types to Arm-based Amazon Graviton instances types. For more information, see Migration effort in the next section of this guide.
Migration effort
The Migration effort column on the EC2 Auto Scaling groups recommendations and EC2 Auto Scaling groups details pages lists the level of effort that might be required to migrate from the current instance type to the recommended instance type. The following shows examples of the different levels of migration effort.
-
Very low — The recommended instance type has the same CPU architecture as the current instance type.
-
Low — Amazon EMR is the inferred workload type and an Amazon Graviton instance type is recommended
-
Medium — A workload type can't be inferred but an Amazon Graviton instance type is recommended.
-
High — The recommended instance type has different CPU architecture from the current instance type, and the workload has no known compatible version on the recommended CPU architecture.
For more information about
migrating from x86-based instance types to Arm-based Amazon Graviton instances type, see Considerations when transitioning workloads to Amazon Graviton2 based Amazon EC2 instances
Performance risk
The performance risk columns on the EC2 Auto Scaling groups details page and the EC2 Auto Scaling groups recommendations page define the likelihood of the current and recommended instance type(s) running in your EC2 Auto Scaling group not meeting your workload requirements. Compute Optimizer calculates an individual performance risk score for each specification of the EC2 Auto Scaling group, including CPU, memory, EBS throughput, EBS IOPS, disk throughput, disk IOPS, network throughput, and network PPS. The performance risk of the current and recommended EC2 Auto Scaling group is calculated as the maximum performance risk score across the analyzed resource specifications.
The values range from very low, low, medium, high, and very high. A very low performance risk means that the instance type(s) is predicted to always provide enough capability. A higher the performance risk means that you should validate whether the instance type(s) running in your EC2 Auto Scaling group will meet the performance requirements of your workload before migrating your resource. Decide whether to optimize for performance improvement, for cost reduction, or for a combination of these two. For more information, see Changing the Instance Type in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide.
Note
In the Compute Optimizer API, the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI), and Amazon SDKs, performance risk is measured on a
scale of 0 (very low) to 4 (very high).
Utilization graphs
The EC2 Auto Scaling group details page displays utilization metric graphs for current instances in the group. The graphs display data for the analysis period. Compute Optimizer uses the maximum utilization point within each five-minute time interval to generate EC2 Auto Scaling group recommendations.
You can change the graphs to display data for the last 24 hours, three days, one week, or two weeks. If you activate the enhanced infrastructure metrics paid feature, you can view data from the last three months.
The following utilization graphs are displayed on the details page:
| Graph name | Description |
|---|---|
|
Average CPU utilization (percent) |
The average percentage of allocated EC2 compute units used by instances in the EC2 Auto Scaling group. |
|
Average network in (MiB/second) |
The number of mebibytes (MiB) per second received on all network interfaces by instances in the EC2 Auto Scaling group. |
|
Average network out (MiB/second) |
The number of mebibytes (MiB) per second sent out on all network interfaces by instances in the EC2 Auto Scaling group. |
|
Instance capacity |
This is the number of running instances with an EC2 Auto Scaling group at any given time. |