AWS Monitoring Best Practices

Amazon Web Services has become a go-to provider for cloud computing efforts because it simplifies the process of setting up servers and services. Despite AWS’s ease of use, IT teams are still responsible for ensuring their cloud environments are running smoothly and everything is working as expected. Amazon CloudWatch assists in overseeing infrastructures and while Amazon’s monitoring solution is intuitive, it is important to have a complete understanding of AWS monitoring best practices so you can have full confidence when executing cloud-based tasks. 

Use a drill-down monitoring approach

The problems that have the most harmful impact on IT environments usually occur when small issues transform into major service-impacting outages. One AWS monitoring best practice to avoid this possibility is monitoring via a drill-down approach and troubleshooting network/application errors on an individual basis so there are no weak links within the greater infrastructure. With a flexible and scalable monitoring solution in place, your cloud services can be adjusted in real-time and will remain secure from any outside threats.   

Collect and analyze data from all areas of your AWS environment

There are numerous Amazon services and platforms playing different roles in making AWS a power player in the world of cloud technology. Some will be a better fit for your specific needs, but it is vital to create a monitoring plan that collects data from all areas of your AWS environment. Complete AWS visibility allows you to efficiently collect and analyze this data, enabling a quicker correction of multi-point failures if they occur. Be sure to have answers ready for basic monitoring questions (ex. what resources are being monitoring, who is monitoring them, how often, etc.) so you can save time when navigating distinct areas within your cloud infrastructure. 

Automate tasks  

Automating tasks is standard advice for all types of technologies and the commonly discussed recommendation also applies to your AWS cloud. With highly distributed IT teams having more control over provisioning resources, automation is becoming crucial as a means of avoiding permission restrictions and other time delays which have previously plagued legacy IT environments. Proper automation processes (often a central part of the DevOps methodology) are a great way of achieving cloud productivity and keeping up with configuration, security and compliance measures that play a key part in driving down costs and increasing productivity. 

Test systems at production and simulate common cloud occurrences 

Once your cloud infrastructure is set up to your liking, it is always wise to deploy a production-scale environment and use heavy workloads to test the bandwidth levels of your infrastructure. By simulating common occurrences, you can take preemptive measures to prevent issues that typically impact cloud environments and learn the differences in how your systems perform across time or environment. Keeping up with new Amazon releases and testing out new instance types for monitoring purposes will add newfound capabilities to your cloud environment and bolster your cloud efforts. 

Learn about the cloud monitoring tools Opsview provides by visiting our Opspacks.