Keeping track of everything happening in your AWS environment is crucial. AWS offers powerful services like CloudWatch, EventBridge, CloudTrail, and Config to monitor performance, log events, track changes, and ensure compliance. Let’s break down what each service does and how they help.
AWS CloudWatch Metrics: Keeping an Eye on Performance
AWS CloudWatch is all about monitoring and alerting. It provides metrics for every AWS service, helping you understand resource utilization, performance, and errors. Here’s what it offers:
Metrics and Dashboards
- Every AWS service has CloudWatch metrics.
- Metrics are organized into namespaces and have attributes called dimensions.
- You can create CloudWatch dashboards to visualize and track metrics.
Streaming and Storing Logs
- Metrics can be streamed in near real-time to Kinesis Data Firehose or third-party tools like Datadog and Splunk.
- CloudWatch Logs store logs from various AWS services.
- Logs are grouped into log groups (custom-named categories) and contain log streams (files, containers, etc.).
- Logs can be sent to S3, Kinesis Streams, Firehose, Lambda, and OpenSearch.
- By default, logs are encrypted.
Insights and Real-Time Log Monitoring
- Log Insights let you search and analyze log data using a custom query language.
- Log subscriptions send real-time log events to destinations like Kinesis Data Streams, Firehose, or Lambda.
- Live Tail is used for real-time log debugging.
Logging from EC2
- EC2 instances do not send logs to CloudWatch by default. You need to install a CloudWatch Agent.
Two types of agents:
- Old Logs Agent (basic logging support).
- Unified Agent (newer, supports logs and detailed metrics like RAM usage).
Advanced Monitoring Features
- Composite Alarms monitor multiple alarms using AND/OR conditions.
- Container Insights, Lambda Insights, and Application Insights help troubleshoot AWS services.
Amazon EventBridge: Automating and Reacting to Events
EventBridge is AWS’s event-driven automation service. It helps schedule and respond to changes in AWS and external systems.
Event Handling and Scheduling
- Used for cron jobs and scheduled tasks.
- Can trigger Lambda functions, SQS, and SNS.
- Acts as an event bus, handling AWS events and third-party integrations (e.g., Zendesk, Datadog).
- Allows access across AWS accounts using resource-based policies.
Schema Registry and Event Analysis
- EventBridge can analyze events and infer the schema.
- Schema Registry helps generate code that understands event structures.
- Centralized Event Bus: Use resource-based policies to consolidate event processing.
AWS CloudTrail: Tracking and Auditing Changes
CloudTrail keeps a record of all API calls and changes in your AWS account. It is enabled by default and is essential for governance, compliance, and security auditing.
Event Logging
- Management Events track resource operations (read/write actions).
- Data Events track high-volume activities like S3 object access and Lambda executions (disabled by default).
- CloudTrail Insights (paid feature) detects unusual activity and anomalies.
Retention and Analysis
- CloudTrail logs are stored for 90 days by default.
- To retain logs longer, store them in S3 and analyze with Athena.
- If something is deleted or changed, CloudTrail is the first place to check.
AWS Config: Ensuring Compliance and Tracking Configuration Changes
AWS Config helps track resource configurations and ensure compliance with rules.
Compliance Monitoring
- AWS Config tracks resource settings and applies AWS-managed or custom rules.
- Examples: Ensuring EC2 instances use specific storage types or IAM roles follow policies.
- Evaluates resources at set time intervals.
Automation and Remediation
- AWS Config doesn’t block actions but identifies non-compliant resources.
- Can trigger automated remediation using custom workflows.
- No free tier; billed per recorded configuration change.
CloudWatch vs. CloudTrail vs. Config: What’s the Difference?
ServicePurpose
CloudWatch: Monitors performance, metrics, and logs. Generates alerts.
CloudTrail: Tracks API calls and user actions for security and auditing.AWS
Config: Monitors configuration changes and compliance.
TL;DR
- CloudWatch: Monitors AWS services, collects logs, sends alerts, and supports dashboards.
- EventBridge: Automates AWS events and schedules tasks.
- CloudTrail: Tracks and audits API activity in AWS.
- AWS Config: Ensures compliance by monitoring resource configurations.
- Use these tools together for better monitoring, security, and compliance in AWS.
These services help you stay on top of everything happening in your AWS environment, making troubleshooting and compliance a breeze!