Set Amazon GameLift Servers capacity limits

When scaling hosting capacity for a Amazon GameLift Servers fleet location, either manually or by auto scaling, consider the location's scaling limits. All fleet locations have a minimum and maximum limit that define the allowed range for the location's capacity. By default, limits on fleet locations have a minimum of 0 instances and a maximum of 1 instance. Before you can scale a fleet location, adjust the limits.

If you're using auto scaling, the maximum limit allows Amazon GameLift Servers to scale up a fleet location to meet player demand but prevents runaway hosting costs, such as during a DDOS attack. Set up an Amazon CloudWatch alarm to notify you when capacity approaches the maximum limit, so you can evaluate the situation and manually adjust as needed. (You can also create a billing alarm to monitor AWS costs.) The minimum limit is useful to maintain hosting availability, even when player demand is low.

You can set capacity limits for a fleet's locations in the Amazon GameLift Servers console or by using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

To set capacity limits

Console

1. Open the Amazon GameLift Servers console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Hosting, Fleets.

3. On the Fleets page, choose the name of an active fleet to open the fleet's detail page.

4. On the Scaling tab, under Scaling capacity, select a fleet location, and then choose Edit.

5. In the Edit scaling capacity dialog box, set instance counts for Min size, Desired instances, and Max size.

6. Choose Confirm.

AWS CLI

1. Check current capacity settings. In a command line window, use the describe-fleet-location-capacity command with the fleet ID and location that you want to change capacity for. This command returns a FleetCapacity object that includes the location's current capacity settings. Determine whether the new instance limits can accommodate the current desired instances setting.

   aws gamelift describe-fleet-location-capacity \
       --fleet-id <fleet identifier> \
       --location <location name>

2. Update limit settings. In a command line window, use the update-fleet-capacity command with the following parameters. You can adjust both instance limits and desired instance count with the same command.

   --fleet-id <fleet identifier>
   --location <location name>
   --max-size <maximum capacity for scaling>
   --min-size <minimum capacity for scaling>
   --desired-instances <fleet capacity goal>

   Example:

   aws gamelift update-fleet-capacity \
       --fleet-id fleet-2222bbbb-33cc-44dd-55ee-6666ffff77aa \
       --location us-west-2 \
       --max-size 10 \
       --min-size 1 \
       --desired-instances 10

If your request is successful, Amazon GameLift Servers returns the fleet ID. If the new max-size or min-size value conflicts with the current desired-instances setting, Amazon GameLift Servers returns an error.