Monitoring

Question 1

What is CloudWatch?

Answer 1

Cloudwatch is a monitoring and observability platform that was designed to give us insight into our AWS architecture. It allows us to monitor multiple levels of our applications and identify potential issues.

Question 2

What are the main things that CloudWatch can do?

Answer 2

1. Collect system metrics (metrics you get out of the box, the more managed your service, the more you get out of the box)
2. Collect application metrics (by installing a CloudWatch agent, you can get information from inside your EC2 instances)
3. Create alarms (alerts you when something goes wrong based on metrics)

Question 3

What are the two kinds of metrics in CloudWatch?

Answer 3

1. Default (provided out of the box and do not require additional work on your part to configure)
2. Custom (these metrics will need to be provided by using the CloudWatch agent installed on the host)

Question 4

What are the metrics that are provided by default in CloudWatch?

Answer 4

EC2 Metrics: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/viewing_metrics_with_cloudwatch.html

RDS Metrics:

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Lambda Metrics:
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S3 Metrics:
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Question 5

What is the lowest period of data collection for standard metrics in CloudWatch?

Answer 5

1 minute

Question 6

What is the lowest period of data collection for custom metrics in CloudWatch?

Answer 6

10 seconds

Question 7

If you are asked what service to use for monitoring, what service would you recommend?

Answer 7

CloudWatch

Question 8

Are there any alarms created by default?

Answer 8

No

Question 9

What is CloudWatch Logs?

Answer 9

CloudWatch Logs is a tool that allows you to monitor, store and access log files from a variety of different sources. It gives you the ability to query your logs to look for potential issues or data that is relevant to you.

Question 10

What is a Log Event in CloudWatch?

Answer 10

This is the record of what happened. It contains the timestamp and the data.

Question 11

What is a Log Stream in CloudWatch?

Answer 11

A collection of Log Events from the same source.

Question 12

What is a Log Group in CloudWatch?

Answer 12

A collection of Log Streams.

Question 13

What are Filter Patterns in CloudWatch Logs?

Answer 13

You can look for specific terms in your logs.

Question 14

What are CloudWatch Logs Insights?

Answer 14

This allows you to query all your logs using SQL-like interactive solution.

Question 15

What are Alarms in CloudWatch Logs?

Answer 15

Once you’ve identified you trends and patterns, you can alert on them using CloudWatch Alarms.

Question 16

If you are asked what service to use for storage of logs where you won’t need to process them, what service would you recommend?

Answer 16

S3

Question 17

If you are asked a questions about processing and viewing logs, what service would you recommend?

Answer 17

CloudWatch Logs

Question 18

If you are asked about what service you would use for logging, if it doesn’t call out needed the logging to be real-time?

Answer 18

CloudWatch Logs

Question 19

If you are asked about how you would log and then filter the logs using SQL-like queries, what service would you recommend?

Answer 19

CloudWatch Logs Insights

Question 20

What is Amazon Managed Grafana?

Answer 20

Fully managed AWS service allowing secure data visualizations for instantly querying, correlating, and visualizing your operational metrics, logs and traces from different sources.

Question 21

What are the features of Amazon Managed Grafana?

Answer 21

1. Easy to deploy, operate and scale in your AWS account
2. Workspaces (logical Grafana servers) allow for separation of data visualizations and querying
3. AWS handles scaling, setup and maintenance of all workspaces
4. Built-in security features help you meet governance and compliance requirements (single-signon, etc.).
5. Pricing is based per active user in a workspace.
6. Integration it with several sources including Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and Amazon Timestream

Question 22

Name some use cases for Amazon Managed Grafana?

Answer 22

1. Container Metric Visualizations (connect to datasources like Prometheus for visualizing EKS, ECS or your own Kubernetes cluster metrics)
2. Internet of Things (IoT) (vast data plugins make the service a perfect fit for monitoring IoT and edge device data)
3. Troubleshooting (centralizing dashboards allows for more efficient operational issue troubleshooting)

Question 23

What is Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus?

Answer 23

Serverless, Prometheus-compatible service used for securely monitoring container metrics at scale

1. Open Source Prometheus (leverage the open-source Prometheus data model with AWS managed scaling and availability)
2. Automatic scaling (based on ingestion, storage and querying of metrics)
3. Designed for high-availability (AWS replicates data across the three AZs in the same region)
4. Choose your own Kubernetes (works with clusters running on Amazon EKS or self-managed Kubernetes clusters)
5. PromQL (leverage the open source PromQL query language for exploring and extracting data)
6. Data retention (stored in workspaces for 150 days and automatically deleted afterward)
7. VPC endpoints can be leveraged for secure VPC access

Question 24

Name some of the built-in datasources in Amazon Managed Grafana.

Answer 24

1. Amazon CloudWatch
2. Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus
3. AWS X-Ray
   (and many more)

Question 25

When would you use Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus?

Answer 25

Leverage the service for Amazon EKS clusters or even self-managed Kubernetes clusters.

Question 26

What is the server you would recommend for anything alarm related?

Answer 26

CloudWatch

Question 27

If you are asked how you could monitor for resource changes, what service would you recommend?

Answer 27

AWS Config

Question 28

How often are standard metrics in CloudWatch delivered by default?

Answer 28

Every 5 minutes

Question 29

How often is detailed monitoring of metrics in CloudWatch delivered (not the default)?

Answer 29

Every 1 minute

Question 30

What services can integrate with CloudWatch Logs?

Answer 30

EC2, on-premises, RDS, Lambda, and CloudTrail

Question 31

If you are asked how you could collect logs in real-time, what service would you recommend?

Answer 31

Kinesis

Question 32

If you are asked how you could visualize and correlate container or IoT metrics, what service would you recommend?

Answer 32

Amazon Managed Grafana

Question 33

If you are asked about monitoring container (especially Kubernetes) metrics at scale, what service would you recommend?

Answer 33

Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus