Introduction to EC2 Monitoring

EC2 Monitoring is a tool to monitor resources on Windows Server.

EC2 Monitoring requires installation of Monitoring Agent.

Monitoring Agent requirements:

Installing Agent:

Go to the EC2 Monitoring section, from the configuration menu select Download Agent.

Unzip file on your Windows Server and run AWSMonitoringService.

This installs Monitoring Agent as Windows Service. When installation is complete, the Authenticator application opens.

Enter your Elastic Cloud Gate user and password and click Verify.

After successful verification of credentials, Monitoring Agent tries to connect to ECG system to pull configuration.

To schedule update of Monitoring Agent, once installation is finished logout and log back in.

After logging back in, Agent Installer will start again. Click Yes to minimize installer to notification area. Click on installer icon and follow wizard to schedule update.

Note: Monitoring Agent pulls configuration every hour, therefore any configuration changes may take up to an hour to take effect. We recommend creating configuration for EC2 Instance before installing the agent – see next section for more information.

Configurations

Agent Configuration:

To configure agent from the Configuration menu, select Monitoring.

In the new window, go to the Monitor Actions tab and click Create New Action.

Enter action name; additionally, you can make the following configurations:

1. To monitor disk usage, check Monitor Disk Usage: this option sends information about total space and space available on every logical disk on the monitoring Windows, every 10 minutes.

2. System Counters Monitoring – Select resource to monitor: this sends value of the monitoring resource every 1 minute.

3. EventLog Monitoring – Allows you to specify event log and log level to be read by agent and sent back to our portal for review by users.

When configuration is complete, click Save Action.

You can create multiple configurations based on your needs.

Actions can be modified or deleted at any time: select Edit or Delete in the table on the left.

After creating action(s), switch to the Monitor Templates tab and click Create New Template.

Enter template name, select action from the drop down list, and click Create.

From the EC2 Instances list, check Instances you want associated with the template and click Save Resources.

Filter Instances by region and AWS account, as well as by tag assigned to Instance.

Any given EC2 Instance can be associated with a template and action only once.

To modify template from the menu, select Edit.

To temporarily suspend monitoring, select Suspend. Please remember configuration is pulled by agent once every hour, so it might take up to one hour before your change takes effect. To resume suspended monitoring from the menu, select Resume.

To delete template from the menu, select Delete.

Note: If you plan to use Agent only for consistent backup, you can create an empty action.

Alerts Configuration:

From the Configuration menu, select Alerts.

In the new window, go to Manage Alerts. From the Action Type drop down list, select which resource you want to create the alert for and click New.

Enter all conditions to trigger the alert and click Save Alert.

Over period of – This value specifies how long (in minutes) the condition needs to persist to trigger an alert. The values range from 5 to 60 minutes, e.g. if you create an alert for CPU with condition Greater Than 90 Over period of 5 minutes, this means alert triggers if the average CPU usage over the last 5 minutes was larger than 90%.

To edit or delete alert from the table on the left, click Edit or Delete.

To assign alert with instance(s), go to the Manage Templates tab and click Create New Template.

Enter template name and email of the user alert notifications should be sent.

If you want the alert sent to multiple emails, add them under “Send CC To” (use a comma separator). When you are done, click Create.

To associate or disassociate alert(s) with template, use arrows under the Alerts tab.

Available Alerts shows the list of alerts you created, but didn’t associate with the current template.

Assigned Alerts shows the list of alerts that are currently associated with the given template.

To assign Instances to template, switch to the EC2 Instances tab and check the Instance(s) you want to associate with template, then click Save Resources.

You can filter Instances by Account and Region.

Note: only Instances currently set up under monitoring are accessible on the list.

At any time, you can edit, suspend, resume, or delete a template by selecting the option from the Action menu.

Schedule Consistent Snapshot:

To schedule consistent snapshots from the Configuration menu, select Snapshots.

In the new window, go to Manage Schedulers and click Create New Action.

Enter the scheduler name as well as time/date of when the snapshot of the EBS should be taken.

You can enter (optional): Description and name of the snapshot.

Select description template.

If you want to copy this snapshot to multiple regions, check Copy snapshot to Different Region and select destination regions from the list.

In addition, you have an option to assign custom tags to the snapshot.

When done, click Save Action.

Note: Maintenance of the snapshot must be set up under the EC2 section, just like regular snapshots.

To associate snapshot schedulers with EBS volume, switch to Manage Templates and click Create New Template.

Enter template name and click Create.

To associate or disassociate action(s) with template, use arrows the under the Actions tab.

Available Actions shows the list of actions you created but didn’t associate with the current template.

Assigned Actions shows the list of actions that are currently associated with the given template.

To assign volume to template, switch to the EBS Volumes tab and check the volume(s) you want to associate with template. After that, click Save Resources.

Note: Only EBS volume(s) associated with the instances currently set up under monitoring are accessible on the list.

UI

Monitoring Panel

Monitoring panel allows you to take a quick look at the current status of up to four Instances.

To add an Instance to monitor panel, drag Instance from the left hand side list and drop it to the panel.

Alerts

The list of alerts within the last 10 minutes is found on the right hand side.

List Tab

On the List tab is visible all Instances configured under monitoring. For each Instance, you can select the following options from the menu:

Monitoring Service

Monitoring service allows you to select Windows Service to monitor. If agent detects that selected service is not running, it attempts to start it.

To select services to monitor, switch to the List tab and under given Instance from the menu select Monitor Services. On the bottom of the list, check services to monitor.

On the top table is visible a list of services that stopped running.

Counters Performance

This option shows the chart for selected counter from selected period.

Disk Usage

This chart shows current disk usage, along with average growth rate. Use this feature to estimate when you need to expand your EBS volume.

Alert

This option shows all alerts currently active, regardless when first occurrence happened.

EventLog

This option lists records from Windows EventLog, per your configuration.

Remove

This option allows you to quickly remove a given Instance from monitoring. It removes the selected Instance from all configurations.