Why monitoring matters in AWS - Challenge Your Understanding

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Why is monitoring critical in cloud environments?

Imagine you run a website on AWS. Why is monitoring your resources important?

A It helps detect problems early and keeps the website running smoothly.

B It automatically fixes all bugs without human help.

C It reduces the cost of AWS services by deleting unused resources.

D It replaces the need for backups and security measures.

💡 Hint

Think about how you would know if your website is slow or down.

Monitoring lets you see how your resources perform and alerts you to issues early, so you can fix them before users notice.

💻 Command Output

intermediate

What does this AWS CloudWatch command output?

Look at this AWS CLI command and its output. What does it show?

AWS

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --metric-name CPUUtilization --start-time 2024-06-01T00:00:00Z --end-time 2024-06-01T01:00:00Z --period 300 --namespace AWS/EC2 --statistics Average --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-1234567890abcdef0

A Total network traffic for the EC2 instance during the hour.

B List of all running EC2 instances in the account.

C Current status of the EC2 instance i-1234567890abcdef0.

D Average CPU usage of the EC2 instance over 5-minute intervals in the specified hour.

💡 Hint

Look at the metric name and statistics requested.

The command fetches average CPU usage data points for the given EC2 instance in 5-minute periods.

🔀 Workflow

advanced

Order the steps to set up AWS CloudWatch alarms for monitoring

Arrange these steps in the correct order to create a CloudWatch alarm that notifies you when CPU usage is high.

A 2,3,1,4

B 1,2,3,4

C 2,1,3,4

D 3,2,1,4

💡 Hint

Think about setting up notifications before creating the alarm.

You first create the SNS topic, subscribe your email, then create the alarm that uses the topic, and finally test it.

❓ Troubleshoot

advanced

Why might your CloudWatch alarm not send notifications?

You set up a CloudWatch alarm with an SNS topic, but you never get email alerts. What could be the cause?

A The EC2 instance is stopped, so no metrics are sent.

B You forgot to confirm the subscription email sent by SNS.

C CloudWatch alarms do not support email notifications.

D You set the alarm threshold too low.

💡 Hint

Check if you completed all steps to receive notifications.

SNS sends a confirmation email that must be accepted to activate notifications. Without confirmation, no alerts are sent.

✅ Best Practice

expert

Which practice improves monitoring efficiency in AWS?

To reduce costs and improve monitoring, which approach is best when setting CloudWatch metrics and alarms?

A Create alarms for every metric available to catch all issues.

B Enable detailed monitoring on all resources regardless of usage.

C Monitor only critical metrics and set alarms for key thresholds.

D Disable all alarms and rely on manual checks.

💡 Hint

Think about balancing cost and usefulness.

Monitoring only important metrics and setting alarms on key thresholds helps catch issues without unnecessary cost or noise.