It provides metrics for every service in AWS. Metric is a variable to monitor like CPU utilization, NetworkIN etc.
- Metrics belong to namespaces
- Dimension is an attribute of metric (instance id, environment…)
Standard monitoring is every 5 minutes, detailed monitoring every 1 minute
Metric Stream
Continuously stream CloudWatch metrics to a destination, with near-real-time delivery and low latency.
- Kinesis Data Firehose (and then its destinations)
- 3rd party: Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Splunk, Sumo Logic…
Metrics
Exist both in standard and detailed monitoring:
| Category | Metric Name | What it Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | CPUUtilization | Percentage of allocated CPU being used. |
CPUCreditUsage / Balance | Only for burstable instances (T2, T3, etc.). | |
| Network | NetworkIn / NetworkOut | Total Bytes received/sent on all interfaces. |
NetworkPacketsIn / Out | Total number of packets received/sent. | |
| Disk (Instance Store) | DiskReadOps / WriteOps | I/O operations on ephemeral (local) disks. |
DiskReadBytes / WriteBytes | Data throughput on ephemeral (local) disks. | |
| Status Checks | StatusCheckFailed | Reports if the instance or system is failing. |
StatusCheckFailed_Instance | Failure due to your OS/Configuration. | |
StatusCheckFailed_System | Failure due to AWS hardware/power issues. |
Exists only in detailed monitoring:
-
Memory (RAM):
mem_used_percent,mem_available, etc. -
Disk Utilization:
disk_used_percent(how full your actual drive/partition is). -
Swap Usage:
swap_used. -
Process Count: Number of active threads/tasks.