aws-cloudformation-cloudwatch

AWS CloudFormation CloudWatch Monitoring

Overview

Creates CloudWatch monitoring infrastructure using CloudFormation templates: metrics, alarms, dashboards, log groups, anomaly detection, synthesized canaries, and Application Signals.

When to Use

• Creating CloudWatch metrics and alarms for production infrastructure
• Building CloudWatch dashboards for multi-region visualization
• Implementing log groups with retention, encryption, and metric filters
• Configuring anomaly detection and composite alarms
• Setting up cross-stack references with Parameters and Outputs
• Validating and deploying monitoring stacks with CloudFormation

Instructions

Follow these steps to create CloudWatch monitoring infrastructure with CloudFormation:

1. Define Alarm Parameters

Specify metric namespaces, dimensions, and threshold values:

Parameters:
  ErrorRateThreshold:
    Type: Number
    Default: 5
    Description: Error rate threshold for alarms (percentage)

  LatencyThreshold:
    Type: Number
    Default: 1000
    Description: Latency threshold in milliseconds

  CpuUtilizationThreshold:
    Type: Number
    Default: 80
    Description: CPU utilization threshold (percentage)

  LogRetentionDays:
    Type: Number
    Default: 30
    AllowedValues:
      - 1
      - 3
      - 7
      - 14
      - 30
      - 60
      - 90
      - 120
      - 365
    Description: Number of days to retain log events

2. Create CloudWatch Alarms

Set up alarms for CPU, memory, disk, and custom metrics:

Resources:
  HighCpuAlarm:
    Type: AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm
    Properties:
      AlarmName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-high-cpu"
      AlarmDescription: Trigger when CPU utilization exceeds threshold
      MetricName: CPUUtilization
      Namespace: AWS/EC2
      Dimensions:
        - Name: InstanceId
          Value: !Ref InstanceId
      Statistic: Average
      Period: 60
      EvaluationPeriods: 3
      Threshold: !Ref CpuUtilizationThreshold
      ComparisonOperator: GreaterThanThreshold
      AlarmActions:
        - !Ref AlarmTopic

  ErrorRateAlarm:
    Type: AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm
    Properties:
      AlarmName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-error-rate"
      MetricName: ErrorRate
      Namespace: !Ref CustomNamespace
      Dimensions:
        - Name: Service
          Value: !Ref ServiceName
      Statistic: Average
      Period: 60
      EvaluationPeriods: 5
      Threshold: !Ref ErrorRateThreshold
      ComparisonOperator: GreaterThanThreshold