Scaling Fly for All

Summary

Fly makes its scaling controls available to all users, allowing them to manage application instance counts across regions and choose virtual-machine sizes. The default plan places an application in one region, while Fly’s autopilot can add an instance when a connection limit of roughly 20–25 is reached and select its location. The new flyctl scale regions command reports or sets regions and per-region minimum counts; for example, ams=1 hkg=1 sjc=1 keeps at least one instance in each location, with weights influencing where new instances are preferred. Users can also run flyctl scale vm to apply a VM size to all current and future instances, triggering a new app version and redeployment. Available sizes range from micro-1x with 128 MB to cpu8mem8 with 8 GB, while the article notes that the system was later superseded.

Takeaways

1. 1

   flyctl scale regions can configure minimum instance counts in specific regions, such as one instance each in ams, hkg, and sjc.

2. 2

   Region weights control Fly’s preference for where newly created instances are placed, while autoscaling and regional balancing remain enabled in the example configuration.

3. 3

   VM options range from micro-1x at 128 MB and 0.12 shared vCPUs to cpu8mem8 at 8 GB and 8 dedicated vCPUs; changing size redeploys all instances.