AWS Monitoring, Compliance, and Auditing

Amazon CloudWatch

AWS hub for monitoring, logging, and infrastructure observability.

CloudWatch Metric

The actual data point or measurement over time.

CloudWatch Namespace

The container where metrics live together.

CloudWatch Dimension

Key-value tags giving a metric context, max 30 per metric.

CloudWatch Custom Metrics

Created for data not provided out-of-the-box, like RAM usage.

Metric Streams

Continually streams metrics to external or internal destinations with low latency.

CloudWatch Log Structure

Log Groups (application level) containing Log Streams (instance level).

CloudWatch Log Retention

Ranges from 1 day to 10 years, or never expires.

CloudWatch Subscription Filters

Delivers log events immediately to targets like Kinesis or Lambda.

CloudWatch S3 Export

Batch export using CreateExportTask; can take up to 12 hours.

CloudWatch Logs Insights

Purpose-built interactive query engine to analyze log data.

Default EC2 Metrics

Hypervisor-level only (CPU, Disk IO, Network); no OS-level metrics.

CloudWatch Unified Agent

Recommended agent collecting both system-level metrics and log files.

Unified Agent OS Metrics

Collects RAM, Disk space, detailed Disk IO, and System/Process metrics.

CloudWatch Alarm States

OK, INSUFFICIENT_DATA, and ALARM.

Composite Alarms

Combines multiple alarms using AND/OR conditions to reduce noise.

EC2 Auto-Recovery

Recovers instance on replacement hardware if System Status Check fails.

Network Synthetic Monitor

Agentless monitor for ICMP/TCP traffic over Direct Connect or VPN.

AWS Site-to-Site VPN

Secure, encrypted tunnel over the public internet to AWS VPC.

AWS Direct Connect

Dedicated, physical fiber-optic connection bypassing the public internet.

Amazon EventBridge

Event-driven bus routing system events or scheduled tasks to targets.

EventBridge Schema Registry

Infers JSON schemas from events and generates code bindings.

Container Insights

Aggregates metrics and logs for ECS, EKS, Fargate, and Kubernetes.

Lambda Insights

Delivers diagnostic and system metrics via a Lambda Layer.

Contributor Insights

Analyzes logs to highlight "Top-N" contributors or heavy talkers.

Application Insights

SageMaker-powered dashboards monitoring EC2 applications and related resources.

AWS CloudTrail

Service for account governance, compliance, and auditing of API calls.

CloudTrail Event Types

Management Events (enabled by default) and Data Events (disabled by default).

CloudTrail Insights

Baselines management activity to automatically flag operational anomalies.

AWS Config

Service for auditing, tracking configuration changes, and evaluating compliance.

AWS Config Remediation

Automates fixes using Systems Manager (SSM) Automation Documents.

CloudWatch Primary Question

"How is my application performing?"

CloudTrail Primary Question

"Who made that API call or change?"

AWS Config Primary Question

"Is my infrastructure compliant with rules over time?"