Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Enhanced Monitoring Flashcards
How does support for Read Replicas vary among the Amazon RDS engines that support this feature?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Read Replicas in both Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB allow you to elastically scale out beyond the capacity constraints of a single DB instance for read-heavy database workloads. There are similarities and differences in the implementations as they leverage native engine features. See the following table for details.
Feature PostgreSQL MySQL MariaDB
Maximum Read Replicas allowed per source DB Instance
5 5 5
Replication method Asynchronous
Physical Asynchronous
Logical Asynchronous
Logical
Must automatic backups be enabled for Read Replica support? Yes Yes Yes
Engine versions for which Read Replicas are available 9.3.5 or later 5.5 or later 10.0 or later
Promotion of Read Replica to a new standalone DB Instance Supported Supported Supported
Creation of Indexes on Read Replica Currently not supported Supported Supported
Creation of Backups of Read Replicas Currently not supported Supported Supported
Chaining of Read Replicas
(i.e., Read Replicas of Read Replicas) Currently not supported Supported Supported
Cross-Region Read Replicas Supported Supported Supported
Multi-AZ Read Replicas
Currently not supported Supported Supported
What is Enhanced Monitoring for RDS?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Enhanced Monitoring for RDS gives you deeper visibility into the health of your RDS instances. Just turn on the “Enhanced Monitoring” option for your RDS DB Instance and set a granularity and Enhanced Monitoring will collect vital operating system metrics and process information, at the defined granularity.
Which metrics and processes can I monitor in Enhanced Monitoring?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Enhanced Monitoring captures your RDS instance system level metrics such as the CPU, memory, file system and disk I/O among others. The complete list of metrics can be found here.
Which engines are supported by Enhanced Monitoring?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Enhanced Monitoring supports all RDS database engines.
Which instance types are supported by Enhanced Monitoring?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Enhanced Monitoring supports every instance type except t1.micro and m1.small. The software uses a small amount of CPU, memory and I/O and for general purpose monitoring, we recommend switching on higher granularities for instances that are medium or larger. For non-production DB Instances, the default setting for Enhanced Monitoring is “off”, and you have the choice of leaving it disabled or modifying the granularity when it is on.
What information can I view on the RDS dashboard?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
You can view all the system metrics and process information for your RDS DB Instances in a graphical format on the console. You can manage which metrics you want to monitor for each instance and customize the dashboard according to your requirements.
Will all the instances in my RDS account sample metrics at the same granularity?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
No. You can set different granularities for each DB Instance in your RDS account. You can also choose the instances on which you want to enable Enhanced Monitoring as well as modify the granularity of any instance whenever you want.
How far back can I see the historical metrics on the RDS console?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
You can see the performance values for all the metrics for up to 1 hour ago, at a granularity of up to 1 second based on your setting.
How can I visualize the metrics generated by RDS Enhanced Monitoring in CloudWatch?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
The metrics from RDS Enhanced Monitoring are delivered into your CloudWatch Logs account. You can create metrics filters in CloudWatch from CloudWatch Logs and display the graphs on the CloudWatch dashboard. For more details, please visit the Amazon CloudWatch page.
When should I use CloudWatch instead of the RDS console dashboard?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
You should use CloudWatch if you want to view historical data beyond what is available on the RDS console dashboard. You can monitor your RDS instances in CloudWatch to diagnose the health of your entire AWS stack in a single location. Currently, CloudWatch supports granularities of up to 1 minute and the values will be averaged out for granularities less than that.
Can I set up alarms and notifications based on specific metrics?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Yes. You can create an alarm in CloudWatch that sends a notification when the alarm changes state. The alarm watches a single metric over a time period that you specify, and performs one or more actions based on the value of the metric relative to the specified threshold over a number of time periods. For more details on CloudWatch alarms, please visit the Amazon CloudWatch Developer Guide.
How do I integrate Enhanced Monitoring with my tool that I currently use?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
RDS Enhanced Monitoring provides a set of metrics formed as JSON payloads which are delivered into your CloudWatch Logs account. The JSON payloads are delivered at the granularity last configured for the RDS instance.
There are two ways you can consume the metrics via a third-party dashboard or application. Monitoring tools can use CloudWatch Logs Subscriptions to set up a near real time feed for the metrics. Alternatively, you can use filters in CloudWatch Logs to bridge metrics across to CloudWatch to and integrate your application with CloudWatch. Please visit Amazon CloudWatch Documentation for more details.
How can I delete historical data?
Enhanced Monitoring
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) | Database
Since Enhanced Monitoring delivers JSON payloads into a log in your CloudWatch Logs account, you can control its retention period just like any other CloudWatch Logs stream. The default retention period configured for Enhanced Monitoring in CloudWatch Logs is 30 days. For details on how to change retention settings, please visit Amazon CloudWatch Developer Guide.
