Google announced the addition of a new feature for Google Compute Engine Autoscaler and Managed Instant Groups called Regional Instance Groups, which enables region-specific control when scaling compute resources.

As the company notes, this is important for those that need high availability.

The feature lets you set up infrastructure that automatically spreads VM instances across three zones of the region while keeping the spread equal as you change group size.

“Now, with region-specific control, in the rare event of a bad build, network issues or zone failure, you’re better protected against losing your service,” says product manager Jerzy Foryciarz. “Since your VM instances are equally spread across three zones, two-thirds of them will not be impacted. On top of that, when you’re using Autoscaler, it will notice increased traffic in other zones and adjust their number accordingly. After the faulty zone goes back to normal, the load will be rebalanced to use all three zones again.”

“Setup is easy,” Foryciarz adds. “If you choose to use regional configuration, simply select Multi-Zone group while creating a Managed Instance Group. At this point, your choice of locations are regions and the scope of your Managed Instance Group and Autoscaler becomes regional.”

According to Google, simplification of configurations allowing for higher availability has been one of the top requested features for Google Compute Engine Autoscaler and Manage Instance Groups since general availability was announced in September.

Images via Google