Comment smugmug uses autoscaling for image processing (Score 1) 124
I posted this as a comment on the blog post, but I'm copying it here as well:
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/06/03/skynet-lives-aka-ec2-smugmug/
Outside of one instance where it launched 250 XL nodes, it seems to be performing pretty well. Their software takes into account a large number of data points (30-50) when deciding to scale up or down. It also takes into account the average launch time of instances, so it can be ahead of the curve, while at the same time not launching more than it needs.