If you can predict when the spike is going to occur, you can actually use the GAE admin API to modify the number of idle instances on the fly. We used this exac

If you can predict when the spike is going to occur, you can actually use the GAE admin API to modify the number of idle instances on the fly. We used this exact method to handle spikes when new games were released at my last job. Then a cron or delayed cloud task would reset the instance count afterward.