Monitoring memory usage in AWS CloudWatch for Windows instance

Question

By default, memory usage isn’t monitored by CloudWatch.

This is what I did:

1. I created a user named custom-metrics-user. Then I stored the access and secret key.

2. I created and attached an Inline Policy to the user. it looks like this:

{ 

  "Version": "2012-10-17", 

  "Statement": [ 

    { 

      "Effect": "Allow", 

      "Action": ["cloudwatch:PutMetricData", "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics", "cloudwatch:ListMetrics", "ec2:DescribeTags"], 

      "Resource": "*" 

    } 

  ] 

}

3. I launched a Windows Instance [2012 R2 Base AMI]. After accessing the instance through RDP, I found that the AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.json file is already present.

4. I changed that .json file accordingly. After changing it, it looks like this:

{

    "EngineConfiguration": {

        "PollInterval": "00:00:15",

        "Components": [

            {

                "Id": "ApplicationEventLog",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.EventLog.EventLogInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "LogName": "Application",

                    "Levels": "1"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "SystemEventLog",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.EventLog.EventLogInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "LogName": "System",

                    "Levels": "7"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "SecurityEventLog",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.EventLog.EventLogInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                "LogName": "Security",

                "Levels": "7"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "ETW",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.EventLog.EventLogInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "LogName": "Microsoft-Windows-WinINet/Analytic",

                    "Levels": "7"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "IISLog",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.IisLog.IisLogInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "LogDirectoryPath": "C:\\inetpub\\logs\\LogFiles\\W3SVC1"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "CustomLogs",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.CustomLog.CustomLogInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "LogDirectoryPath": "C:\\CustomLogs\\",

                    "TimestampFormat": "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss",

                    "Encoding": "UTF-8",

                    "Filter": "",

                    "CultureName": "en-US",

                    "TimeZoneKind": "Local"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "PerformanceCounter",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.PerformanceCounterComponent.PerformanceCounterInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "CategoryName": "Memory",

                    "CounterName": "Available MBytes",

                    "InstanceName": "",

                    "MetricName": "Memory",

                    "Unit": "Megabytes",

                    "DimensionName": "InstanceId",

                    "DimensionValue": "{instance_id}"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "CloudWatchLogs",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.CloudWatchLogsOutput,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": {

                    "AccessKey": "",

                    "SecretKey": "",

                    "Region": "us-east-1",

                    "LogGroup": "Default-Log-Group",

                    "LogStream": "{instance_id}"

                }

            },

            {

                "Id": "CloudWatch",

                "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.CloudWatch.CloudWatchOutputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

                "Parameters": 

                {

                    "AccessKey": "AKIAIK2U6EU675354BQ",

                    "SecretKey": "nPyk9ntdwW0y5oaw8353fsdfTi0e5/imx5Q09vz",

                    "Region": "us-east-1",

                    "NameSpace": "System/Windows"

                }

            }

        ],

        "Flows": {

            "Flows": 

            [

                "PerformanceCounter,CloudWatch"

            ]

        }

    } 

}

5. I enabled CloudWatch Logs integration under EC2ConfigSettings.

6. I restarted the EC2Config Service.

I got no errors but the Memory metric isn't being shown in the Cloud Watch console. The blog says to wait for 10-15 minutes for the metric to appear, but it has already been an hour since I have done it. What’s going wrong?

 

Answer 1

First, add this IAM role:

{

    "Version": "2012-10-17",

    "Statement": [

        {

            "Sid": "AllowAccessToSSM",

            "Effect": "Allow",

            "Action": [

                "cloudwatch:PutMetricData",

                "logs:CreateLogGroup",

                "logs:CreateLogStream",

                "logs:DescribeLogGroups",

                "logs:DescribeLogStreams",

                "logs:PutLogEvents"

            ],

            "Resource": [

                "*"

            ]

        }

    ]

}

Modify the EC2Config file:

Check this following path: C:\Program Files\Amazon\Ec2ConfigService\Settings.AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.json

Add this to the JSON file:

...

{

    "Id": "PerformanceCounter",

    "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.PerformanceCounterComponent.PerformanceCounterInputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

    "Parameters": {

        "CategoryName": "Memory",

        "CounterName": "Available MBytes",

        "InstanceName": "",

        "MetricName": "Memory",

        "Unit": "Megabytes",

        "DimensionName": "InstanceId",

        "DimensionValue": "{instance_id}"

    }

}

...

{

    "Id": "CloudWatch",

    "FullName": "AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch.CloudWatch.CloudWatchOutputComponent,AWS.EC2.Windows.CloudWatch",

    "Parameters": 

    {

        "AccessKey": "",

        "SecretKey": "",

        "Region": "eu-west-1",

        "NameSpace": "PerformanceMonitor"

    }

}

Restart EC2Config and you will receive your CloudWatch metrics on the console in a few minutes.