1. A method to scale an application, the method comprising: displaying a user-selectable control in a user interface, the user-selectable control to specify whether the application is to be scaled in accordance with a scaling policy; based on selection of the user-selectable control, storing, in a blueprint of the application, an indication of whether the application is to be scaled in accordance with the scaling policy; based on the indication in the blueprint, preparing, by executing an instruction with at least one processor, a virtual machine pool in the computing environment, the virtual machine pool including a first virtual machine provisioned for use in a scaling operation; in response to a request to scale the application deployed in a deployment environment, determining, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, whether configuration information of the virtual machine pool satisfies a scaling requirement included in the request; determining, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, whether the scaling policy permits expanding the virtual machine pool when the configuration information fails to satisfy the scaling requirement; instantiating, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, a second virtual machine in the virtual machine pool when the scaling policy permits expanding the virtual machine pool; updating, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, the configuration information of the virtual machine pool; determining, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, whether the updated configuration information satisfies the scaling requirement; and based on the determination of the updated configuration information, performing, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, the scaling operation in accordance with the request by transferring the first virtual machine to the deployment environment.