PRTG Manual: Amazon CloudWatch Sensor

This Sensor Type Is Deprecated!

This sensor type is deprecated. We provide the documentation in this section for your information only. We removed this sensor type from PRTG with version 16.x.25 (expected in May 2016). Your sensor will then stop monitoring and show a Down status.

See the following article for details and possible alternatives for deprecated sensors:

Knowledge Base: The PRTG Sensor Cleanup

Alternative Sensor Type

Please use the current Amazon Cloudwatch sensors instead.

The Amazon CloudWatch sensor monitors performance of Amazon Cloud services.

The following services are available:

  • Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
  • Simple Queue Service (SQS)
  • Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
  • Elastic Block Store (EBS)
  • Simple Notification Service (SNS)
  • Relational Database Service (RDS)
  • ElastiCache
     

Depending on the selected service, the sensor can show the following:

  • CPU utilization
  • Network load in and out
  • Disk read and write speed
  • Number of disk read and write operations per second
     

i_round_blueWhich channels the sensor actually shows might depend on the monitored device and the sensor setup.
 

Amazon CloudWatch Sensor

Amazon CloudWatch Sensor

Click here to enlarge: http://media.paessler.com/prtg-screenshots/amazon_cloudwatch.png

Remarks

  • You must enable the CloudWatch option for the instance that you want to monitor. You can do this, for example, using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) console.
  • Requires access rights for CloudWatch queries. For details, see the Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?
  • Requires .NET 4.0 or higher on the probe system.
  • Note: Amazon will charge you (a small amount) for each "Amazon CloudWatch API Request" query the sensor sends to the Amazon servers. Depending on the service, each Amazon CloudWatch sensor sends about 10 to 30 requests with each scanning interval. Last time we checked the Amazon price list, they charged max. US$ 0.014 per 1,000 requests (depending on your region).
    For details, see the Knowledge Base: How much does Amazon charge for using Amazon CloudWatch sensors in PRTG?
  • Note: This sensor will only show those channels for which it receives data from Amazon. You can check the availability of data in your CloudWatch Console on the AWS website. To know which channels are possible for the various services of this Amazon CloudWatch sensor, see section Supported Metrics.
  • This sensor can have a high impact on the performance of your monitoring system. Use it with care. We recommend that you use no more than 50 sensors of this sensor type on each probe.
     

Requirement: Access Rights for Amazon CloudWatch Queries

The AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) account that you use with the Amazon CloudWatch sensor needs specific rights to query any metrics. For details, see section More.

Requirement: .NET Framework

This sensor type requires the Microsoft .NET Framework to be installed on the probe system (on every cluster node, if on a cluster probe). If the framework is missing, you cannot create this sensor.

Required .NET version (with latest updates): .NET 4.0 (Client Profile is sufficient), .NET 4.5, or .NET 4.6.

i_square_cyanFor more information, see the Knowledge Base: Which .NET version does PRTG require?

Add Sensor

The Add Sensor dialog appears when you manually add a new sensor to a device. It only shows the setting fields that are required for creating the sensor. Therefore, you do not see all setting fields in this dialog. You can change (nearly) all settings in the sensor's Settings tab later.

PRTG performs a meta-scan before you can actually add this sensor and requires basic information for this scan in advance. Provide the requested information in the appearing dialog box. During the scan, PRTG recognizes all items available for monitoring based on your input. The following settings differ in comparison to the sensor's Settings tab.

Amazon Credentials

Region

Select the region in which the instance to be monitored runs:

  • US East (Northern Virginia)
  • US West (Oregon)
  • US West (Northern California)
  • EU (Ireland)
  • Asia Pacific (Singapore)
  • Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
  • Asia Pacific (Sydney)
  • South America (Sao Paulo)

The settings you select are valid for all sensors that you create when you finish this dialog.

Note: The CloudWatch option must be enabled for the instance that you want to monitor (you can do this, for example, using Amazon's AWS console).

Select which service instances you want to monitor. PRTG creates one sensor for each instance that you select in the Add Sensor dialog.

The settings you select are valid for all sensors that you create when you finish this dialog.

The following settings for this sensor differ in the Add Sensor dialog in comparison to the sensor's Settings tab.

Amazon CloudWatch Specific

Service Instance

Select the instances that you want to add a sensor for.

You see a list with the names of all items that you can monitor. Add check marks in front of the respective lines to select the desired items. You can also use the check box in the table header to select all items or cancel the selection.

i_round_bluePRTG creates one sensor for each selection.

Sensor Settings

Click the Settings tab of a sensor to change its settings.

i_round_blueUsually, a sensor connects to the IP Address or DNS Name of the parent device on which you created the sensor. See the device settings for details. For some sensors, you can explicitly define the monitoring target in the sensor settings. See below for details on available settings.

Setting

Description

Sensor Name

Enter a meaningful name to identify the sensor. By default, PRTG shows this name in the device tree, as well as in alarms, logs, notifications, reports, maps, libraries, and tickets.

Parent Tags

Shows tags that this sensor inherits from its parent device, group, and probe. This setting is shown for your information only and cannot be changed here.

Tags

Enter one or more tags. Confirm each tag with the Spacebar key, a comma, or the Enter key. You can use tags to group objects and use tag-filtered views later on. Tags are not case-sensitive. Tags are automatically inherited. You can add additional tags to the sensor. There are default tags that are automatically predefined in a sensor's settings when you add a sensor.

i_round_blueIt is not possible to enter tags with a leading plus (+) or minus (-) sign, nor tags with parentheses (()) or angle brackets (<>).

Priority

Select a priority for the sensor. This setting determines where the sensor is placed in sensor lists. A sensor with a top priority is at the top of a list. Choose from one star (low priority) to five stars (top priority).

Amazon Credentials

AWS Access Key ID

Enter your access key ID. You can obtain it from aws.amazon.com.

AWS Secret Access Key

Enter your secret access key. You can obtain it from aws.amazon.com.

Region

Shows the region your instance is located at. Once you have created the sensor, you cannot change this value. It is shown for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Amazon CloudWatch Specific

Period (Interval)

Define in what granularity you want to receive datapoints from CloudWatch:

  • 1 Minute
  • 2 Minutes
  • 5 Minutes
  • 10 Minutes
  • 30 Minutes
  • 1 Hour

Service

Shows the service this sensor is monitoring. Once you have created the sensor, you cannot change this value. It is shown for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Instance

Shows the Instance ID of the Amazon Web Services instance this sensor is monitoring. When using the SNS service, this field is not visible. Once you have created the sensor, you cannot change this value. It is shown for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Topic Name

This field is only visible if you selected a "Simple Notification Service (SNS)" instance before. It shows the topic name that is monitored by this sensor. The sensor will show the number and size of messages published, and the number of notifications delivered and failed. Each sensor can monitor one topic name only. Once you have created the sensor, you cannot change this value. It is shown for reference purposes only. If you need to change this value, add the sensor anew.

Availability Zone

This field is only visible if you selected a "Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)" instance before. Enter the name of the Availability Zone of the Load Balancer that you want to monitor. If you leave this field empty, the average value of all zones will be taken.

Sensor Display

Setting

Description

Primary Channel

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

i_round_blueYou can set a different primary channel later by clicking the pin symbol of a channel on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how different channels are shown for this sensor:

  • 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.
    i_round_blueThis option cannot be used in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This field is only visible if you enable Stack channels on top of each other as Graph Type. Select a unit from the list. All channels with this unit are stacked 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.

Inherited Settings

By default, all of the following settings are inherited from objects that are higher in the hierarchy and should be changed there if necessary. Often, best practice is to change them centrally in the root group settings. For more information, see section Inheritance of Settings. To change a setting for this object only, disable inheritance by clicking the button next to inherit from under the corresponding setting name. You then see the options described below.

Note: For Amazon CloudWatch sensors, the scanning interval cannot be inherited. Use the individual settings of the sensor to define the interval in which data is received.

Schedules, Dependencies, and Maintenance Window

i_round_blueYou cannot interrupt the inheritance for schedules, dependencies, and maintenance windows. The corresponding settings from the parent objects are always active. However, you can define additional settings here. They are active at the same time as the parent objects' settings.

Setting

Description

Schedule

Select a schedule from the list. Schedules can be used to monitor for a certain time span (days or hours) every week.

i_square_cyanYou can create schedules, edit schedules, or pause monitoring for a specific time span. For more information, see section Account Settings—Schedules.

i_round_blueSchedules are generally inherited. New schedules are added to schedules that you already set up, so all schedules are active at the same time.

Maintenance Window

Specify if you want to set up a one-time maintenance window. During a maintenance window, the selected object and all child objects are not monitored. They are in a Paused status instead. Choose between:

  • Not set (monitor continuously): No maintenance window is set and monitoring is always active.
  • Set up a one-time maintenance window: Pause monitoring within a maintenance window. You can define a time span for a monitoring pause below and change it even for an active maintenance window.

i_round_blueTo terminate an active maintenance window before the defined end date, change the time entry in Maintenance Ends to a date in the past.

Maintenance Begins

This field is only visible if you enable Set up a one-time maintenance window above. Use the date time picker to enter the start date and time of the maintenance window.

Maintenance Ends

This field is only visible if you enable Set up a one-time maintenance window above. Use the date time picker to enter the end date and time of the maintenance window.

Dependency Type

Define a dependency type. You can use dependencies to pause monitoring for an object depending on the status of a different object. You can choose from:

  • Use parent: Use the dependency type of the parent object.
  • Select a sensor: Use the dependency type of the parent object. Additionally, pause the current object if a specific sensor is in a Down status or in a Paused status caused by another dependency.
  • Master sensor for parent: Make this sensor the master object for its parent device. The sensor influences the behavior of its parent device: If the sensor is in a Down status, the device is paused. For example, it is a good idea to make a Ping sensor the master object for its parent device to pause monitoring for all other sensors on the device in case the device cannot even be pinged. Additionally, the sensor is paused if the parent group is paused by another dependency.

i_round_blueTo test your dependencies, select Simulate Error Status from the context menu of an object that other objects depend on. A few seconds later, all dependent objects are paused. You can check all dependencies under Devices | Dependencies in the main menu bar.

Dependency

This field is only visible if you enable Select a sensor above. Click the Search button and use the object selector to select a sensor on which the current object will depend.

Dependency Delay (Sec.)

This field is only visible if you enable Select a sensor above. Define a time span in seconds for dependency delay.

After the master sensor for this dependency comes back to an Up status, monitoring of the dependent objects is additionally delayed by the defined time span. This can prevent false alarms, for example, after a server restart, by giving systems more time for all services to start up. Enter an integer value.

i_round_redThis setting is not available if you set this sensor to Use parent or to be the Master sensor for parent. In this case, define delays in the parent device settings or in its parent group settings.

Access Rights

Click b_inherited_enabled to interrupt the inheritance. See section Inheritance of Settings for more information.

Setting

Description

User Group Access

Define the user groups that have access to the object. You see a table with user groups and group access rights. The table contains all user groups in your setup. For each user group, you can choose from the following group access rights:

  • Inherited: Inherit the access rights settings of the parent object.
  • No access: Users in this user group cannot see or edit the object. The object neither shows up in lists nor in the device tree.
    i_round_blueThere is one exception: If a user in this user group has access to a child object, the parent object is visible in the device tree but users in this user group cannot access it.
  • Read access: Users in this group can see the object and view its monitoring results. They cannot edit any settings.
  • Write access: Users in this group can see the object, view its monitoring results, and edit its settings. They cannot edit its access rights settings.
  • Full access: Users in this group can see the object, view its monitoring results, edit its settings, and edit its access rights settings.

To automatically set all child objects to inherit this object's access rights, enable the Revert children's access rights to inherited option.

i_square_cyanFor more details on access rights, see section Access Rights Management.

Channel Unit Configuration

Click b_inherited_enabled to interrupt the inheritance. See section Inheritance of Settings for more information.

Setting

Description

Channel Unit Types

For each type of channel, define the unit in which data is displayed. If defined on probe, group, or device level, these settings can be inherited to all sensors underneath. You can set units for the following channel types (if available):

  • Bandwidth
  • Memory
  • Disk
  • File
  • Custom

i_round_blueCustom channel types can be set on sensor level only.

Supported Metrics

Amazon CloudWatch Metrics

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

  • CPUUtilization
  • NetworkIn
  • NetworkOut
  • DiskReadBytes
  • DiskReadOps
  • DiskWriteBytes
  • DiskWriteOps
  • CPUCreditUsage
  • CPUCreditBalance
  • StatusCheckFailed
  • StatusCheckFailed_Instance
  • StatusCheckFailed_System

Simple Queue Service (SQS)

  • ApproximateNumberOfMessagesDelayed
  • ApproximateNumberOfMessagesNotVisible
  • ApproximateNumberOfMessagesVisible
  • NumberOfEmptyReceives
  • NumberOfMessagesDeleted
  • NumberOfMessagesReceived
  • NumberOfMessagesSent
  • SentMessageSize

Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)

  • RequestCount
  • HealthyHostCount
  • UnHealthyHostCount
  • HTTPCode_Backend_2XX
  • HTTPCode_Backend_3XX
  • HTTPCode_Backend_4XX
  • HTTPCode_Backend_5XX
  • HTTPCode_ELB_4XX
  • HTTPCode_ELB_5XX
  • Latency

Elastic Block Store (EBS)

  • VolumeIdleTime
  • VolumeQueueLength
  • VolumeReadBytes
  • VolumeReadOps
  • VolumeWriteBytes
  • VolumeWriteOps
  • VolumeTotalReadTime
  • VolumeTotalWriteTime

Simple Notification Service (SNS)

  • NumberOfMessagesPublished
  • NumberOfNotificationsDelivered
  • NumberOfNotificationsFailed
  • PublishSize

Relational Database Service (RDS)

  • CPUUtilization
  • FreeableMemory
  • DatabaseConnections
  • FreeStorageSpace
  • ReadIOPS
  • WriteIOPS
  • ReadLatency
  • WriteLatency
  • ReadThroughput
  • WriteThroughput
  • SwapUsage

ElastiCache

  • BytesReadIntoMemcached
  • BytesUsedForCacheItems
  • BytesWrittenOutFromMemcached
  • CasBadval
  • CasHits
  • CasMisses
  • CmdFlush
  • Cmdget
  • Cmdset
  • CPUUtilization
  • CurrConnections
  • CurrItems
  • DecrHits
  • DecrMisses
  • DeleteHits
  • DeleteMisses
  • Evictions
  • FreeableMemory
  • GetHits
  • GetMisses
  • IncrHits
  • IncrMisses
  • NetworkBytesIn
  • NetworkBytesOut
  • NewConnections
  • NewItems
  • Reclaimed
  • UnusedMemory

More

Knowledge Base: How do I set permissions for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API key to use certain sensors in PRTG?

Knowledge Base: How much does Amazon charge for using Amazon CloudWatch sensors in PRTG?

Knowledge Base: Why can't I use EU Frankfurt as region for my Amazon CloudWatch sensor?

Knowledge Base: Which .NET version does PRTG require?

Edit Channels

To change display settings, spike filtering, and limits, switch to the sensor's Overview tab and click the gear icon of a specific channel. For detailed information, see section Sensor Channel Settings.

Notification Triggers

Click the Notification Triggers tab to change notification triggers. For detailed information, see section Sensor Notification Triggers Settings.

Others

For more general information about settings, see section Object Settings.

Sensor Settings Overview

For information about sensor settings, see the following sections: