The remote server returned an unexpected response: (409) Conflict.

Question

AzureWatch is sending me emails about unsuccessfull scaling events and is citing this as an error.  Why is this happening?

Answer 1

Windows Azure reports this error to AzureWatch when a previous scaling event has not yet finalized.  As an FYI: it typically takes Windows Azure 10-15 minutes to complete a "scale-up by 1 new instance" event.  

Here are the usual situations when Windows Azure is going to report a conflict:

1) Your delay between scaling events, specified in AzureWatch is not long enough.  Previous scaling events do not have time to complete, while new ones are already being issued.  Increase the timer between scaling actions by going to System Settings screen in Control Panel

2) You have manually issued a scale-up or scale-down command but according to your rules in AzureWatch your instance counts need to change back to what they were before.  AzureWatch will attempt to scale you back, while Azure has not yet finalized scaling from your manual action.  

3) There maybe certain timing conditions, when AzureWatch will try to enforce min/max safety limits on your instance counts, and when Azure maybe a little too slow to react. A new scaling command maybe issued while previous one has not yet had a chance to be even kicked-off by Azure.  These situations may occur right after deployment of a new version of your application with an instance count is outside of safety limits specified by you in AzureWatch.  Notification emails should stop as soon as instance counts are brought back into safety range.