Autoscaling for the FHIR service

Azure Health Data Services provides a managed environment for persisting FHIR®-compliant healthcare data and interacting with that data securely through the FHIR API endpoint.

The built-in autoscaling capability in this environment automatically ensures that compute resources for the FHIR service can dynamically adjust based on the load, helping maintain performance and efficiency under varying workloads. You don't need to take any action to configure or enable this feature.

The autoscaling feature for FHIR service is available in all regions where the FHIR service is supported.

Autoscale at the compute level

Scale triggers

Scaling triggers determine when scaling of the service is performed. The system checks conditions defined in the trigger at one-minute intervals to determine if a service should be scaled. The service currently supports only the following triggers:

• Average CPU
• Max Worker Thread
• Average LogWrite
• Average data IO

Scaling mechanism

The scaling mechanism is applied if the trigger check determines that scaling is necessary. The system doesn't evaluate the scaling trigger again until the scaling interval expires.

To ensure the best possible outcome, we recommend that you gradually increase your request rate to match the expected push rate, rather than pushing all requests at the same time.

FAQ

What is the cost to enable autoscaling for FHIR service?

The autoscaling feature incurs no extra costs.

What should customers do if there's high volume of HTTP 429 errors?

Gradually increase the request rate to see if it reduces HTTP 429 errors. For consistent 429 errors, create a support ticket through the Azure portal. The support team works with you to understand your scaling trigger needs.

Related content

Supported FHIR Features