Metrics
- It represents a time-ordered set of data points that are published to Amazon CloudWatch
- All data point is marked with a timestamp
- Metric is a variable that is monitored and data points are the value of that variable over time
- They are uniquely defined by a name, namespace, and zero or more dimensions
- Metric math is used to query multiple Cloudwatch metrics and use math expressions to create new time series based on these metrics
Dimensions
- A dimension is a name/value pair which uniquely identifies a metric
- Dimensions are the unique identifiers for a metric, so whenever you add a unique name/value pair to one of the metrics, you are creating a new variation of that metric.
Statistics
- Statistics are metric data aggregations over specified periods of time
- The few available statistics on Cloudwatch are maximum, minimum, sum, average, and sample count.
Alarm
- It is used to automatically initiate actions on our behalf
- It watches a single metric over a specified time period and performs one or more specified actions based on the value of the metric
- The estimated AWS charges can also be monitored using the alarm
Percentiles
- It represents the relative weightage of the data in a dataset
- It helps the user to get a better understanding of the distribution of metric data
Cloudwatch dashboard
- A user-friendly Cloudwatch console is available which is used for monitoring resources in a single view.
- There is no limit on the number of cloudwatch dashboards you can create.
- These dashboards are global and not region-specific
Cloudwatch agent
- It is required to be installed
- It collects logs and system-level metrics from EC2 instances and on-premises servers
Cloudwatch Events
- Cloudwatch events help you to create a set of rules that match with any event(i.e stopping of EC2 instance).
- These events can be routed to one or more targets like AWS Lambda functions, Amazon SNS Topics, Amazon SQS queues, and other target types.
- Cloudwatch Events observes the operational events continuously and whenever there is any change in the state of the event, it performs the action by sending notifications, activating lambda, etc.
- An event indicates a change in the AWS environment. Whenever there is a change in the state of AWS resources, events are generated.
- Rules are used for matching events and routing to targets.
- Target process events. They include Amazon EC2 instances, AWS Lambda functions, etc. A target receives the events in JSON format.
Cloudwatch logs
- Amazon Cloudwatch logs enable you to store, monitor, and access files from AWS resources like Amazon EC2 instances, Route53, etc.
- It also helps you to troubleshoot your system errors and maintain the logs in highly durable storage.
- It also creates log of information about the DNS queries that Route 53 receives.
Introduction to Amazon Cloudwatch
Amazon CloudWatch is a service used for monitoring and observing resources in real-time, built for DevOps engineers, developers, site reliability engineers (SREs), and IT managers. CloudWatch provides users with data and actionable insights to monitor their respective applications, stimulate system-wide performance changes, and optimize resource utilization. CloudWatch collects monitoring and operational data in the form of logs, metrics, and events, providing its users with an aggregated view of AWS resources, applications, and services that run on AWS. The CloudWatch can also be used to detect anomalous behavior in the environments, set warnings and alarms, visualize logs and metrics side by side, take automated actions, and troubleshoot issues.
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