Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service for AWS resources and the applications you run on Amazon Web Services (AWS). You can use Amazon CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, and set alarms.
With CloudWatch, you can monitor the performance of your Amazon EC2 instances. You can use CloudWatch to collect and track metrics for your instances, such as CPU and memory usage, network traffic, and disk I/O. You can also use CloudWatch to monitor the status of your instances, such as when they are terminated, stopped, or restarted.
CloudWatch can also be used to monitor logs and events coming from EC2 instances, by sending logs and events to CloudWatch Logs and CloudWatch Events.
You can also use CloudWatch Alarms to automatically react to thresholds that you set for CloudWatch metrics. For example, you can set an alarm that sends an email message when the average network latency of an Amazon RDS database exceeds 10 seconds.
To use CloudWatch with EC2 instances, you can either enable detailed monitoring on the instances themselves or use the CloudWatch Agent to collect additional metrics and logs from the instances.
AWS CloudWatch Logs
Amazon CloudWatch Logs is a service that allows you to monitor, store, and access your log files from Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, AWS CloudTrail, and other cloud resources.
With CloudWatch Logs, you can troubleshoot your systems and applications by searching and analyzing your log data. You can use CloudWatch Logs to detect patterns, troubleshoot issues, and identify possible security breaches.
CloudWatch Logs can collect log data from a variety of sources, including EC2 instances, AWS CloudTrail, and other cloud resources. The service can automatically discover log files on your instances, and it can also collect custom log data that you send to CloudWatch Logs.
You can also use CloudWatch Logs Insights to perform ad-hoc analysis of your log data. With CloudWatch Logs Insights, you can run queries to extract useful information from your log data, such as the number of error messages, the most common request URLs, and the IP addresses of the most active users.
Additionally, You can use CloudWatch Logs with other AWS services like Amazon Elasticsearch Service (ES) or Kinesis Data Streams to perform additional analysis and visualization of the log data.
To use CloudWatch Logs with your instances, you can configure your instances to send log data to CloudWatch Logs using the CloudWatch Agent or by using the AWS SDKs and the CloudWatch Logs API.
Types of CloudWatch Metrics
There are two types of CloudWatch metrics: standard metrics and custom metrics.
Standard metrics are pre-defined metrics that are automatically collected by AWS services, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk. These metrics include things like CPU utilization, disk read and write operations, and network traffic.
Custom metrics, on the other hand, are metrics that you define and send to CloudWatch using the CloudWatch API or SDK. Custom metrics can be used to track application-level metrics, such as the number of requests processed, the number of errors, or the response time of a service.
Standard metrics are collected at a 5-minute interval and are available for 15 months in CloudWatch. Custom metrics can be sent at a 1-minute interval, and it’s stored for 15 months.
You can also use CloudWatch Alarms to set thresholds on metrics and receive notifications or take automated actions when a threshold is breached.
Additionally, CloudWatch Metrics can be visualized in CloudWatch Dashboards for easy monitoring and troubleshooting.
AWS CloudWatch Pricing
AWS CloudWatch has a pay-as-you-go pricing model. There are no upfront costs or long-term commitments. You only pay for what you use.
Here is a summary of the pricing for some of the most commonly used CloudWatch features:
- Metrics data: You can send up to 1 million custom metrics and 10 million alarm-related events per month for free. Beyond that, the cost is $0.01 per 1,000 metrics and $0.01 per 1,000 alarms.
- Logs data: You can send up to 5 GB of logs data per month for free. Beyond that, the cost is $0.03 per GB.
- CloudWatch Alarms: You can create up to 100 CloudWatch Alarms for free. Beyond that, the cost is $0.10 per alarm per month.
- CloudWatch Dashboards: You can create up to 3 dashboards and up to 50 metrics per dashboard for free. Beyond that, the cost is $3 per dashboard per month and $0.30 per metric per month.
- CloudWatch Events: You can send up to 1,000 CloudWatch Events per month for free. Beyond that, the cost is $1 per 1 million events.
- CloudWatch Logs Insights: You can perform up to 5 GB of data scans per month for free. Beyond that, the cost is $0.005 per GB scanned.
It’s important to note that these prices are subject to change and there may be additional costs for other AWS services that are integrated with CloudWatch. It’s always best to check the AWS website for the most up-to-date pricing information.
AWS Create CloudWatch Dashboard
To create a CloudWatch dashboard in the AWS Management Console, follow these steps:
- Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudWatch console.
- In the navigation pane, choose “Dashboards” and then choose “Create dashboard”.
- Enter a name for your dashboard and choose “Create dashboard”.
- On the dashboard, choose “Add widget” to add a graph, text, or other visual element to the dashboard.
- In the “Create widget” wizard, select the metric you want to display and configure the widget settings.
- Choose “Add to dashboard” to add the widget to the dashboard.
- Repeat steps 4-6 to add additional widgets to the dashboard.
- Once you have added all the widgets you want, choose “Save dashboard” to save your changes.
You can also create a CloudWatch dashboard using the AWS CLI or SDKs.
It’s also worth noting that you can also customize the layout of your dashboard by resizing, moving, and adding sections to the dashboard. You can also share the dashboard with other users, set permissions, and schedule automated actions based on the metrics on the dashboard.
