In one aspect, an example methodology implementing the disclosed techniques includes, by a computing device, determining a number of expected requests that cannot be processed using non-scalable resource instances that are available to process requests and provisioning one or more scalable resource instances based on the number of expected requests that cannot be processed using the non-scalable resource instances that are available to process requests. The provisioning of the one or more scalable resource instances includes executing a startup function configured to consume one or more processors of a started scalable resource instance for a predetermined duration, the started scalable resource instance being available to process a request subsequent to the predetermined duration.