Protecting Your EC2 Instances in AWS: Don’t Forget About Auto Scaling!

As an AWS user, you’re likely familiar with EC2 termination protection, a safeguard feature that prevents accidental termination of instances through API, CLI, or console. However, did you know that termination protection alone won’t prevent Auto Scaling groups from terminating EC2 instances?

While instances in ASG are typically ephemeral and meant to be terminated and replaced as part of the scaling process, there are scenarios where you may want to protect your EC2 instances in an ASG from automatic termination. For example, you may want to revert a failed rolling update.

To ensure that your EC2 instances are fully protected against unwanted termination, you should enable scale-in protection on these instances. This feature lets you specify which instances should be protected from automatic termination, even if the ASG decides to scale in.

Refer to this documentation for more info.

Do you have any additional tips or best practices for protecting EC2 instances in AWS? Share them in the comments below!