change the value of instances count programmatically in azure

Question

I downloaded AutoScale from http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2011/03/21/Windows-Azure-and-scaling-how-(NET).aspx and followed the instructions there. I added it as reference to my existing azure project. But I am not sure what exactly I should pass as the user defined parameters for the 6 parameters required for auto scale.

I want to only change the instance count of my worker role depending on the number of documents to be processed.

Answer 1

Those parameters are all from the management API and the Silverlight Management UI

There are several more samples/tools for the Management API available - e.g. http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/azurecmdlets/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Getting%20Started&version=1

There's also a commercial third party service available to assist - see paraleap.com

Maarten's tool has parameters:

             Console.WriteLine("  AutoScale.exe <certificatefile> <subscriptionid> <servicename> <rolename> <slot> <instancecount>");

• To generate the certificate file, see the instructions from that cmdlet article or see the instructions in http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avkashchauhan/archive/2010/12/30/handling-issue-csmanage-cannot-establish-secure-connection-to-management-core-windows-net.aspx
• The subscription ID is available via the silverlight azure management UI
• the ServiceName and RoleName are what you choose when you create the service in the UI and when you create the role in code
• the Slot is "Production" or "Staging"
• the instanceCount is how many instances you want to run