AWS CloudWatch Custom Metrics Integration

Products

• CloudHealth

Issue/Introduction

Tanzu CloudHealth can use AWS CloudWatch to collect custom metrics from EC2 instances for performance and rightsizing reports.

Please follow the following guide to configure the AWS CloudWatch Custom Metrics.

Environment

AWS

Resolution

To configure CloudWatch custom metrics, Follow the below guide.

Enabling CloudWatch option in CloudHealth:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-CloudHealth/SaaS/getting-started-with-vmware-tanzu-cloudhealth/GUID-aws-quick-start.html#step-4--enable-cloudwatch-optional-4

Installing CloudWatch Agents at AWS:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/install-CloudWatch-Agent-on-EC2-Instance.html

AWS CloudWatch Metrics Namespace supported in CloudHealth:

CWAgent

System/Linux

System/Windows

Supported CloudWatch Metrics:

Metrics for Linux Instances
mem_total
mem_used_percent
mem_free
swap_used
swap_used_percent
swap_free
disk_total
disk_used

 

Metrics for Windows Instances
Memory % Committed Bytes In Use
Memory Available MBytes
Paging File % Usage
LogicalDisk % Free Space

 

Metrics for Linux Instances Published by Script
MemoryUsed
MemoryUtilization
MemoryAvailable
SwapUsed
SwapUtilization
DiskSpaceUsed
DiskSpaceUtilization

 

CloudWatch Agent Configuration JSON

For Linux:

{
"agent": {
"metrics_collection_interval": 60,
"run_as_user": "root"
},
"metrics": {
"namespace": "CWAgent",
"append_dimensions": {
"InstanceId": "${aws:InstanceId}"
},
"metrics_collected": {
"disk": {
"measurement": [
"used",
"total"
],
"metrics_collection_interval": 60,
"resources": [
"*"
]
},
"mem": {
"measurement": [
"free",
"used_percent",
"total"

],
"metrics_collection_interval": 60
},
"swap": {
"measurement": [
"free",
"used",
"used_percent"
],
"metrics_collection_interval": 60
}
}
}
}

To deploy the configuration, copy the above configuration to a JSON file called cw.json.

run the following command (assuming the cw.json file is under the /home/ec2-user/cw.json path)

sudo /opt/aws/amazon-cloudwatch-agent/bin/amazon-cloudwatch-agent-ctl -a fetch-config -m ec2 -s -c file:/home/ec2-user/cw.json

To validate the CloudWatch service is running and the configuration, run the following command.

systemctl | grep cloudwatch
sudo cat /opt/aws/amazon-cloudwatch-agent/etc/amazon-cloudwatch-agent.d/file_cw.json

 

For Windows:

{
"metrics": {
"namespace": "CWAgent",
"append_dimensions": {
"InstanceId": "${aws:InstanceId}"
},
"metrics_collected": {
"LogicalDisk": {
"measurement": [{
"name": "% Free Space",
"unit": "Percent"
}],
"metrics_collection_interval": 60,
"resources": [
"*"
]
},
"Memory": {
"measurement": [{
"name": "% Committed Bytes In Use",
"unit": "Percent"
}],
"metrics_collection_interval": 60
},
"Paging File": {
"measurement": [{
"name": "% Usage",
"unit": "Percent"
}],
"metrics_collection_interval": 60,
"resources": [
"*"
]
}
}
}
}

To deploy this configuration file to Windows system, copy the above configuration content to a file called cw.json then follow the below Powershell command (assuming you saved the cw.json under "C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\cw.json"

& "C:\Program Files\Amazon\AmazonCloudWatchAgent\amazon-cloudwatch-agent-ctl.ps1" -a fetch-config -m ec2 -s -c file:C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\cw.json

To validate the service and configuration you can run the following command.
Get-service "*cloudwatch*"
type  C:\ProgramData\Amazon\AmazonCloudWatchAgent\Configs\file_cw.json