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PRTG Manual: AWS EC2 v2 Sensor

The AWS EC2 v2 sensor monitors the performance of an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance by reading its data from Amazon CloudWatch via the AWS API.

If you use the same Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy that you use for this sensor, you must update it. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?

For a list of metrics that this sensor supports, see section Supported Metrics.

For a list of dimensions that this sensor supports, see section Supported Dimensions.

For a list of regions that this sensor supports, see section Supported AWS Regions and Their Codes.

For a detailed list and descriptions of the channels that this sensor can show, see section Channel List.

Sensor in Other Languages

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Russian: AWS EC2 v2
Simplified Chinese: AWS EC2 v2
Spanish: AWS EC2 v2

Remarks

Consider the following remarks and requirements for this sensor:

Remark	Description
Permissions for the AWS API key	This sensor requires permissions for the AWS API key. For more information, see the Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?
Credentials	This sensor requires credentials for AWS.
IPv6	This sensor supports IPv6.
Performance impact	This sensor has a low performance impact.
Lookups	This sensor uses lookups to determine the status values of one or more channels.
Pricing	Amazon can charge you based on the number of API calls that the sensor sends to the Amazon servers. For more information, see Amazon CloudWatch Pricing – Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Add Sensor dialog	It can take up to several minutes before objects appear in the Add Sensor dialog.
Scanning interval	This sensor has a fixed minimum scanning interval for performance reasons. You cannot use a shorter scanning interval. Consequently, shorter scanning intervals in the Monitoring settings are not available for this sensor. The minimum scanning interval of this sensor is 5 minutes. The recommended scanning interval of this sensor is 5 minutes.
Multi-platform probe	You can add this sensor to a multi-platform probe.

Basic Sensor Settings

The sensor has the following default tags that are automatically predefined in the sensor's settings when you add the sensor:

aws
cloudwatch
cloudwatchsensor
ec2

For more information about basic sensor settings, see section Sensor Settings.

AWS EC2 Specific

Setting	Description
ID	The ID of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors.
Name	The name of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors.
Region	The region in which the AWS EC2 instance runs. For a list of regions that this sensor supports, see section Supported AWS Regions and Their Codes.

Setting

Description

The ID of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors.

Name

The name of the AWS EC2 instance that this sensor monitors.

Region

The region in which the AWS EC2 instance runs.

For a list of regions that this sensor supports, see section Supported AWS Regions and Their Codes.

Sensor Display

Setting	Description
Primary Channel	Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, PRTG displays the last value of the primary channel below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor. You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.
Graph Type	Define how this sensor shows different channels: Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel. Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic. You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).
Stack Unit	This setting is only visible if you select Stack channels on top of each other above. Select a unit from the list. PRTG stacks all channels with this unit on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Setting

Description

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, PRTG displays the last value of the primary channel below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how this sensor shows different channels:

Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This setting is only visible if you select Stack channels on top of each other above.

Select a unit from the list. PRTG stacks all channels with this unit on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Debug Options

Setting	Description
Result Handling	Define what PRTG does with the sensor result: Discard result (default): Do not store the sensor result. Store result: Store the sensor result and the last response in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].log. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval. This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance. In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Setting

Description

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

Discard result (default): Do not store the sensor result.
Store result: Store the sensor result and the last response in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].log. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Inherited Settings

By default, all of these settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy. We recommend that you change them centrally in the root group settings if necessary. To change a setting for this object only, click under the corresponding setting name to disable the inheritance and to display its options.

For more information, see section Inheritance of Settings.

Supported Metrics

The AWS EC2 v2 sensor supports the following metrics:

CPUCreditBalance (Average)
CPUCreditUsage (Average)
CPUUtilization (Average)
DiskReadBytes (Average)
DiskReadOps (Average)
DiskWriteBytes (Average)
DiskWriteOps (Average)
NetworkIn (Average)
NetworkOut (Average)
StatusCheckFailed (Average)
StatusCheckFailed_Instance (Average)
StatusCheckFailed_System (Average)

Supported Dimensions

The AWS EC2 v2 sensor supports the following dimensions:

Instance

Channel List

Which channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the target device, the available components, and the sensor setup.

Channel	Description
CPU Credit Balance	The CPU credit balance
CPU Credit Usage	The CPU credit usage
CPU Utilization	The CPU usage This channel is the primary channel by default.
Disk Read	The disk read speed
Disk Read Ops	The number of disk read operations
Disk Write	The disk write speed
Disk Write Ops	The number of disk write operations
Downtime	In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status.
Instance Status	The AWS EC2 instance status Up status: Passed Down status: Failed
Network In	The incoming network load
Network Out	The outgoing network load
System Status	The AWS EC2 system status Up status: Passed Down status: Failed