An AWS construct (or equivalent on other clouds) that automatically scales the number of compute instances up or down based on demand metrics — ensuring capacity matches load without manual intervention.
Auto-Scaling Groups define: a launch template (what the instances look like), min/max/desired instance counts, and scaling policies that adjust desired count based on metrics (CPU > 70% → add an instance, request rate < threshold → remove one). Health checks ensure unhealthy instances are replaced. Modern variants (predictive scaling) use ML to anticipate load patterns. The cloud-native answer to 'how do I handle traffic spikes without paying for peak capacity 24/7?'.
Configuring an ASG to scale from 2 to 50 instances based on CPU + request rate — handling Black Friday's 20× traffic spike without manual intervention.
Auto-scaling is what makes cloud economically advantageous over fixed-capacity infrastructure — pay for what you use, not what you might use.
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