Operational excellence pillar in AWS - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Implementing AWS Operational Excellence Pillar Basics

📖 Scenario: You are working as a cloud engineer for a small company that wants to improve its AWS environment's operational excellence. Your task is to create a simple AWS CloudFormation template that sets up basic monitoring and alerting to help the company detect and respond to issues quickly.

🎯 Goal: Build a CloudFormation template that defines a CloudWatch Alarm monitoring CPU utilization of an EC2 instance and a SNS Topic for alert notifications. This setup helps the company follow the AWS Operational Excellence pillar by improving monitoring and incident response.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a CloudFormation template with an EC2 instance resource.

Add a CloudWatch Alarm that triggers when CPU utilization exceeds 70%.

Create an SNS Topic for alarm notifications.

Subscribe an email endpoint to the SNS Topic.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Monitoring and alerting are essential for running reliable cloud applications. This project shows how to set up basic monitoring and notifications in AWS to detect and respond to issues quickly.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and DevOps professionals use CloudFormation templates to automate infrastructure setup. Understanding how to implement monitoring and alerting aligns with operational excellence best practices required in many cloud roles.

1

Create the EC2 Instance Resource

Create a CloudFormation template with a resource named MyEC2Instance of type AWS::EC2::Instance. Set the ImageId property to ami-0abcdef1234567890 and InstanceType to t2.micro.

AWS

# Define the EC2 instance resource
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the Resources section to define the EC2 instance with the exact name and properties.

2

Add SNS Topic for Notifications

Add a resource named AlarmNotificationTopic of type AWS::SNS::Topic to the CloudFormation template.

AWS

Resources:
  MyEC2Instance:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
    Properties:
      ImageId: ami-0abcdef1234567890
      InstanceType: t2.micro

# Add SNS Topic resource below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Define the SNS Topic resource under Resources with the exact name AlarmNotificationTopic.

3

Create CloudWatch Alarm for CPU Utilization

Add a resource named HighCPUAlarm of type AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm. Configure it to monitor the CPUUtilization metric of the EC2 instance MyEC2Instance. Set the alarm to trigger when CPU utilization is greater than 70% for 5 minutes (evaluation periods 1, period 300 seconds). Set the AlarmActions to notify the AlarmNotificationTopic.

AWS

Resources:
  MyEC2Instance:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
    Properties:
      ImageId: ami-0abcdef1234567890
      InstanceType: t2.micro
  AlarmNotificationTopic:
    Type: AWS::SNS::Topic

# Add CloudWatch Alarm resource below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Dimensions with InstanceId set to !Ref MyEC2Instance to link the alarm to the EC2 instance.

4

Subscribe Email Endpoint to SNS Topic

Add a resource named EmailSubscription of type AWS::SNS::Subscription. Set the Protocol to email, the Endpoint to [e-mail], and the TopicArn to reference AlarmNotificationTopic.

AWS

Resources:
  MyEC2Instance:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
    Properties:
      ImageId: ami-0abcdef1234567890
      InstanceType: t2.micro
  AlarmNotificationTopic:
    Type: AWS::SNS::Topic
  HighCPUAlarm:
    Type: AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm
    Properties:
      AlarmDescription: "Alarm when CPU exceeds 70%"
      Namespace: AWS/EC2
      MetricName: CPUUtilization
      Dimensions:
        - Name: InstanceId
          Value: !Ref MyEC2Instance
      Statistic: Average
      Period: 300
      EvaluationPeriods: 1
      Threshold: 70
      ComparisonOperator: GreaterThanThreshold
      AlarmActions:
        - !Ref AlarmNotificationTopic

# Add SNS Subscription resource below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the AWS::SNS::Subscription resource type with the exact properties to subscribe the email.