Welcome to this AWS hands-on lab for Using CloudWatch for Resource Monitoring!
This lab provides practical experience with creating and configuring multiple custom AWS CloudWatch dashboards and widgets.
The primary focus will be on the following features within CloudWatch:
1. CloudWatch Dashboards
1. Dashboard Widgets
1. CloudWatch Metrics
CloudWatch Dashboards built with custom widgets allow you to visually monitor resources and proactively take actions if needed. Overall, the dashboards give you a central (and visual) view of how your monitored resources are behaving at specific points in time.
Learning Objectives
Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:
- Create a CloudWatch Dashboard for the DMZ Layer
Create a CloudWatch dashboard specific to the DMZ layer. After, setup a widget within the DMZ Layer dashboard for the bastion host instance, set to monitorthe
CPUUtilizationmetric.- In the AWS Management Console, navigate to CloudWatch.
- Select Dashboards
- Choose Create dashboard (Give your dashboard a name)
- Select a Line widget.
- Under All Metrics > EC2 > Per-instance Metrics, enter
CPUUtilizationinto the search bar. Find the bastion-host server row, select it, and then choose Create widget.
- Create a CloudWatch Dashboard for the Application Layer
Create a separate CloudWatch dashboard with widgets displaying metrics specific to the Application Layer.
You will set up the following metrics for both instance-wordpress instances and the database instance:
CPUUtilizationandNetworkIn.- In the AWS Management Console, navigate to CloudWatch.
- Select Metrics
- Choose Create new at the dashboard selection. Name and save it.
- Select a Stacked area widget.
- Under All Metrics > EC2 > Per-instance Metrics. From there find CPUUtilization, click on it, then choose Search for this only in the dropdown.
- Find the instance-wordpress rows and the database row. Select them, and then choose Create widget.
- Find the database row, select it, and then choose Create widget.
- Repeat these steps that guided you in setting up the
CPUUtilizationmetric for the instance-wordpress and database instances, but this time choose theNetworkInmetric.
You will also set up the following metric for the Application Load Balancer named load-balancer:
RequestCount.- In the AWS Management Console, navigate to CloudWatch.
- Select Dashboards
- Choose the App Layer specific dashboard.
- Select Add widget
- Select a Number widget.
- Under All Metrics, select the ApplicationELB namespace, then Per AppELB Metrics. From there find RequestCount and find the load-balancer row, then choose Create widget.
