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☁️ Practical 6: Monitor Resources Using AWS CloudWatch

AWS CloudWatch

Objective: Use AWS CloudWatch to monitor AWS resources properly and set up triggered SNS Alarms.

🖥️ Method 1: Console / GUI Guide (AWS Management Console)

If you prefer to provision infrastructure manually via the Management Console, follow these steps:

  1. Log In: Open the CloudWatch Dashboard in the AWS Console.
  2. Find Metrics: Click All metrics and search correctly for AWS/EC2.
  3. Select Instance: Select an existing running EC2 instance and find the specific CPUUtilization metric.
  4. Create Alarm: Go to Alarms > Create alarm and systematically select the metric you just chose.
  5. Set Threshold: Set the condition to reliably trigger Greater than 80%.
  6. Configure SNS: In the Notification step, select Create new topic (SNS). Enter an email address you have access to.
  7. Confirm Email: You will need to click the direct confirmation link sent to your email to permanently activate the subscription.

🚀 Method 2: Automated Script Guide

For rapid, reproducible deployments, use the provided bash scripts.

🔍 Script Analysis

Script Name Action Performed
6monitordeploy.sh 🟢 Deploys an EC2 instance and structurally sets up SNS (Simple Notification Service) topics. It attaches a CloudWatch Alarm explicitly configured to trigger an alert if CPU utilization spikes above a predefined threshold.
6monitorcleanup.sh 🔴 Deletes the CloudWatch alarms, firmly un-subscribes users, smoothly deletes the SNS topic, and forcibly terminates the monitored EC2 instance.

🛠️ Usage Instructions

Prerequisites:

  • AWS CLI installed and configured with active credentials.

Execute the following commands from the root directory:

# 1. Navigate to scripts folder
cd scripts/

# 2. Provide execution permission
chmod +x 6_monitor_deploy.sh 6_monitor_cleanup.sh

# 3. Deploy EC2, SNS Topic, and CloudWatch Alarms
./6_monitor_deploy.sh      

# 4. Clean up alarms, topics, and compute instance
./6_monitor_cleanup.sh

🖼️ Result / Output

CloudWatch Dashboard

Figure 6.1: Custom CloudWatch Dashboard showing CPU and Network metrics.

Monitored Instances

Figure 6.2: EC2 instances listed in the CloudWatch monitoring context.

SNS Topic Setup

Figure 6.3: Successful creation of the SNS notification topic.

SNS Subscriptions

Figure 6.4: Active email subscription for monitoring alerts.

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