It can be a big job keeping track of the analytics, trends, and technology fixes you run on AWS. Chances are, if you work in a business, you have to monitor all of these things. What if you could keep track of everything in one easy system, addressing operational issues, performing queries, and identifying exactly what needs fixed using log analytics? Monitoring, data collection, analysis, automation, and security could be at your fingertips, along with some additional features for your business, when you use AWS CloudWatch.

You may be asking the obvious, what is AWS CloudWatch? Keep reading, and you’ll see precisely what CloudWatch is and why your marketing agency needs it.

Metrics & Alarms

AWS CloudWatch monitors applications and cloud resources with ease. This feature allows you to gather and track metrics, enabling you to get system clarity and view application performance. When something doesn’t go according to plan, CloudWatch alarms will update you quickly on the issue so you can keep things running smoothly.

CloudWatch logs will monitor your data and keep track of response codes and help you understand performance. You can also set alarms to alert you for EC2 actions or let you know if your CPU is too high. If you can monitor it, you can track it. If you can track it, then you can set an alarm for it. Having alarms alert you to changes will help your team stay ahead of the game, instead of finding things out too late. The quicker you know about an issue, the quicker it can be fixed, tracked, and improved.

AWS Monitoring 

With CloudWatch you can get basic monitoring (for free) or detailed monitoring (for a cost). The basic will pull data every five minutes, offers 10 metrics, and 5GB of data storage and ingestion. If you choose the second option, data will be pulled every minute for detailed tracking.

Whether you choose the basic or detailed plan, CloudWatch monitoring is essential to keeping track of data to know the actions needed for your business. Performance efficiency is fundamental when it comes to monitoring. This feature is all about maintaining efficiency as technology evolves and demands shift. The performance stack collects data on every layer, keeping your metrics and logs up to date on your dashboard.

Log Insights

With AWS CloudWatch, you can create a dashboard for detecting application log errors, insights, and anomalies. CloudWatch does this with ease by keeping everything in one easy place, accessible on your dashboard. Metrics are sent to CloudWatch in 1-5 minute increments (based on your plan choice). Application modes can be run and tracked through log insights.

Log insights allow you to search and analyze log data. Those insights help with understanding how to respond to operational problems by conveying log data to log insights.

A couple of methods can be used for this feature. You have the choice to redirect logs manually if you are using containers for operations. If you utilize EC2, an initial install will be required. After that is complete, monitoring your local log files is a breeze, and they will be sent to your CloudWatch Logs.

AWS Services

Tracking your AWS Services is one of the main features in CloudWatch. You may want to forward information from VPC, Relational Database Service, and CloudTrail. With information recorded in real-time, analyzing metrics and troubleshooting has never been easier. Real-time monitoring helps you get to the bottom of any issues and correct it before things get off track.

Demands are constantly changing in a world with technology and an ever-growing population shifting their wants. Tailoring products and services to an audience is only the beginning; tracking those services, keeping operations running, and staying on top requires knowing where your stats lay. AWS CloudWatch gives you that and more; by offering the above key features to keep you in the know. Knowing your metrics gives way for analysis. Analysis helps you find and invent solutions and solutions to keep your business growing.