Resolve Downtime Issues with AWS System Manager Custom Metrics

Consider a situation where you have a downtime issue arising in your machine. Still, the CPU utilization is average, and you cannot think why it is happening. Then custom metrics will come into the picture; you can set some custom metrics like memory utilization metrics to check the downtime is due to high memory utilization or something else.

The first question that strikes in mind is why we need custom metrics when AWS CloudWatch offers a large variety of matrices for your EC2 instances. Sometimes, you need some custom metrics to visualize your instances to know the exact reason for the downtime.

Well, you can achieve custom metrics set up with the help of AWS System Manager, which makes this setup much more effortless and understandable.

AWS System Manager

AWS System Manager (very well known as SSM) is an AWS service that helps to view and control operational data on multiple AWS Resources such as a group of EC2, IoT Devices, On-Prem servers, etc.

It helps you maintain security and compliance by scanning your machines and reporting any violations if found.

Installation of AWS System Manager

By default, AWS SSM is installed on these flavors of EC2 machines-:

Amazon Linux
Amazon Linux 2
Amazon Linux 2 ECS-Optimized Base AMIs
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and 15
Ubuntu Server 16.04, 18.04, and 20.04

But if your EC2 doesn’t come in the above category, then you can manually install it on your EC2 server, click below on the basis of your OS, and install it:

Setting up Custom Metrics

Step -1:

Create an EC2 role with these policies

CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy
AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore

Step -2:

Attach an IAM Role to the instances

Go to Instance and click on actions
Click on security
Click on Modify IAM Role and attach the role that you have created

Step -3:

System Manager

Go to system-manager and click on the run command
Select the package
Keep everything as default and give name as shown, please use the same name as it is case sensitive
Choose the instance
Disable S3
Click on Run
It will take a couple of seconds to complete

Step -4:

Parameter Store

Click on parameter store to store the configuration from the left navigation
Click on create parameter
Give the same name as given below, it is mandatory to use AmazonCloudWatch prefix
In the values section put json file mentioned below
Use the json given below in values field and keep everything default and create the parameter
Click here to get the JSON code
Repeat for windows if you have windows instance and give name as given below
Paste the windows config in values
Copy both parameter name in a notepad
Go to Run command again in left navigation
Go to the 4’rth page and select Amazon-cloudwatch-manage-agent as shown below
Paste the name as you have copied, paste windows parameter name as shown below and keep everything default
Choose the windows instance as we are setting up for windows one
Disable S3 and keep everything as default and click on run
Wait for a few seconds it will complete
Repeat the process for Linux one
Give the Linux parameter name as you stored
Choose the instance and disable the s3 and click on Run, Keep all as default
Wait for a few minutes it will succeed the installation
After 5-10 minutes go to CloudWatch click on metrics and select all metrics
There are 2 custom metrics
You can well go through each and see your custom metrics

Conclusion

In this world of competition, where there is no room for a lag of your website or serious downtime, you will lose your potential customers who will switch to your competitors. So make your website completely free from such issues by significantly decreasing the downtime, making your application highly available with frequent releases. CloudThat’s team of experts can help you set up a highly available and scalable infrastructure. In addition, we have a special managed service team that will monitor your Infrastructure and resolve issues as soon as possible so that you can focus on your business more than downtime problems.

About CloudThat

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