Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a scalable cloud computing service that provides resizable compute capacity, enabling users to run applications on virtual servers in the AWS cloud. EC2 offers flexibility in choosing instance types, operating systems, and configurations to match workload requirements.
Monitoring Amazon EC2 instances is critical for ensuring optimal performance, availability, and cost efficiency. Applications Manager’s EC2 monitoring tool delivers real-time insights into instance health, resource utilization, network traffic, and disk I/O. With detailed performance metrics, proactive alerts, and capacity planning features, the tool helps prevent downtime, optimize resource usage, and maintain consistent application performance.
To learn how to create a new Amazon EC2 Instance monitor, refer here.
The Amazon EC2 instances are monitored based on the parameters or the attributes listed below. These attributes provide information about the functioning of the EC2 instances. You can also configure thresholds to the numerical attributes based on these details and get notified when the thresholds are violated.
Go to the Monitors Category View by clicking the Monitors tab. Click on the EC2 Instance of Amazon monitors under the Cloud Apps Table. Displayed is the Amazon EC2 bulk configuration view distributed into three tabs:
Below is an explanation of the metrics shown in the following tabs:
Note: The metrics marked with an * are collected using Amazon Cloudwatch.
This tab provides a high-level overview of the EC2 instance as well as its performance indicators.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Status Check Information | |
| Overall Instance Health | Indicates whether the instance has passed both the instance reachability and system reachability checks. Possible values: PASSED | FAILED |
| Instance Status Check | Indicates whether the instance has passed the instance reachability check. Possible values: PASSED | FAILED |
| System Status Check | Indicates whether the instance has passed the system reachability check. Possible values: PASSED | FAILED. |
| Attached EBS Volume Status Check | Indicates if attached EBS volumes are reachable and completing I/O operations. Available only for Nitro instances with EBS volumes. |
| CPU UTILIZATION | |
| CPU Utilization | The total CPU Utilization of the instance. |
| NETWORK TRAFFIC | |
| Network IN | Total incoming network traffic during the poll interval (in Bytes/Min) |
| Network Out | Total outgoing network traffic during the poll interval (in Bytes/Min) |
| DISK I/O | |
| Disk Read Ops | Total number of disk read operations during the poll interval (in operations/s) |
| Disk Write Ops | Total number of disk write operations during the poll interval (in operations/s) |
| Network Packets Throughput | |
| Rate of Network Packets Received | Total number of packets received per minute across all interfaces during the poll interval (in packets/min). |
| Network Packets Received | Total number of packets received across all interfaces during the poll interval (in packets). |
| Rate of Network Packets Sent | Total number of packets sent per minute across all interfaces during the poll interval (in packets/min). |
| Network Packets Sent | Total number of packets sent across all interfaces during the poll interval (in packets). |
| Disk Throughput | |
| Rate of Disk Data Read | The total amount of data read per minute from all instance store volumes available to the instance between the poll interval (in MB/min). |
| Disk Data Read | The total amount of data read from all instance store volumes available to the instance between the poll interval (in MB). |
| Rate of Disk Data Written | The total amount of data written per minute to all instance store volumes available to the instance between the poll interval (in MB/min). |
| Disk Data Written | The total amount of data written to all instance store volumes available to the instance between the poll interval (in MB). |
| CPU CREDIT BALANCE & USAGE | |
| 'CPU Credit Balance & Usage' graph metrics are reported only for burstable EC2 instances. 'CPU Surplus Credit Balance & Charges' graph metrics are reported only for burstable instances in Unlimited mode. For instances in Standard mode, these metrics are always reported as zero. | |
| CPU Credit Balance | The minimum number of CPU credits available for bursting at the time of polling. |
| CPU Credit Usage | The total amount of CPU credits consumed for bursting between the poll interval. |
| CPU SURPLUS CREDIT BALANCE & CHARGES | |
| CPU Surplus Credit Balance | The minimum surplus CPU credits available for bursting in Unlimited mode at the time of polling. |
| CPU Surplus Credits Charged | The total amount of surplus CPU credits charged beyond earned credits in Unlimited mode between the poll interval. |
| IMDS V1 TOKEN REQUESTS | |
| 'IMDS V1 No-Token Requests' metrics are reported only for Xen-based EC2 instances when IMDSv1 calls are made or rejected. These metrics may appear as zero or be unavailable if all metadata access uses IMDSv2 or if IMDSv1 is disabled. | |
| Metadata No Token Rejected Requests | Number of times the Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) was accessed without a token between the poll interval. |
| Metadata No Token Requests | Number of IMDSv1 calls attempted after IMDSv1 was disabled between the poll interval. |
To collect operating system-level metrics like Memory and Disk, you must deploy the Cloud-Watch Agent inside EC2 instance. The agent will send your data to Cloud-Watch from where Applications Manager fetches and displays it in the console. Click here to know more about how you can collect metrics from Amazon ec2 instances and on-premises servers with the Cloud-Watch Agent.
Note: Fetching OS-level metrics via the Cloudwatch agent is supported from build 13740 of Applications Manager.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| MEMORY STATISTICS | |
| Available Memory | The memory available for use of the EC2 instance (in GB). |
| Used Memory | The memory currently in use (in GB). |
| MEMORY UTILIZATION | |
| Memory Utilization | The memory used on an instance (in %). |
| Swap Utilization | The disk swap utilization (in %). |
| DISK UTILIZATION | |
| Disk Utilization | The disk space used on an instance. |
| DISK SPACE DETAILS | |
| DiskName | Name of the disk. |
| Total Disk Space | The total amount of disk space available on an instance. |
| Total Size | Total size of the disk (in GB). |
| Disk Utilization | The percentage of disk space used on an instance. |
| Disk Available | The total amount of disk space available on an instance (in GB). |
| Disk Used | The total amount of disk space used by an instance (in GB). |
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| AVAILABLE MEMORY | |
| Available Memory | The memory available for use of the EC2 instance (in GB). |
| % Committed Bytes In Use | The percentage of memory in use for which space has been reserved in the paging file, should it need to be written to disk. |
| DISK UTILIZATION | |
| Disk Name | Name of the disk. |
| Total Size | Total size of the disk (in GB). |
| Disk Utilization | The percentage of disk space used on an instance (in %). |
| Disk Available | The total amount of disk space available on an instance (in GB). |
| Disk Used | The total amount of disk space used by an instance (in GB). |
This tab provides metrics about the EBS volumes attached to the EC2 instance.
Note: The below EBS metrics are available only for Amazon EBS volumes attached to Nitro-based EC2 instances. For instances not built on the Nitro System, some metrics may not be reported or may have incomplete data. You can find the list of Nitro instance types here.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Configuration | |
| Volume ID | The ID of the Amazon EBS volume. The volume and instance must be within the same Availability Zone and the instance must be running. |
| Size | The size of the volume in Giga Bytes. |
| Snapshot ID | Snapshot from which the volume was created. |
| Created Time | Time stamp when volume creation was initiated. |
| Attached Time | Time stamp when the attachment was initiated. |
| Delete on Termination | Specifies whether the Amazon EBS volume is deleted on instance termination. |
| Health | Denotes the health of the volume (clear, warning, critical). |
| Latency | |
| Idle Time * | The time period when no read or write operations were waiting to be completed in percentage (in %). |
| Write Latency * | The average milliseconds spent per write operation that was completed between the poll interval (in ms/operation). |
| Read Latency * | The average milliseconds spent per read operation that was completed between the poll interval (in ms/operation). |
| Volume Traffic | |
| Read Bandwidth * | The total amount of data read from the attached volume during the poll interval (in bytes/s). |
| Write Bandwidth * | The total amount of data written to the attached volume during the poll interval (in bytes/s). |
| Volume IO | |
| Read Throughput * | The total number of read operations per second between the poll interval (in operations/s). |
| Write Throughput * | The total number of write operations per second between the poll interval (in operations/s). |
| Queue Length * | The average number of read and write operation requests waiting to be completed over the period. |
| EBS Metrics (Nitro-based Instances) | |
| The following metrics are available only for Amazon EBS volumes attached to Nitro-based EC2 instances. For non-Nitro instances, some metrics may not be reported or may show incomplete data. | |
| EBS I/O Burst Credit Metrics | |
| EBS I/O Burst Credit Balance | Minimum percentage of I/O burst credits remaining in the burst bucket at the time of polling (in %). |
| EBS Throughput Burst Credit Metrics | |
| EBS Throughput Burst Credit Balance | Minimum percentage of throughput burst credits remaining in the burst bucket at the time of polling (in %). |
| EBS Operations | |
| EBS Read Operations | Total number of completed read operations per second from all Amazon EBS volumes between the poll interval (in operations/s). |
| EBS Write Operations | Total number of completed write operations per second to all Amazon EBS volumes between the poll interval (in operations/s). |
| EBS Volume Throughput | |
| Rate of EBS Data Read | Total amount of data read per minute from all attached EBS volumes between the poll interval (in MB/min). |
| EBS Data Read | Total amount of data read from all attached EBS volumes between the poll interval (in MB). |
| Rate of EBS Data Written | Total amount of data written per minute to all attached EBS volumes between the poll interval (in MB/min). |
| EBS Data Written | Total amount of data written to all attached EBS volumes between the poll interval (in MB). |
This tab provides the configuration details of the EC2 instance.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Instance ID | The unique key that identifies the EC2 instance. |
| Instance Type | Indicates the type of the instance. |
| Instance Launch Time | The time at which the instance was launched |
| State | The current state of the instance. The values include running, stopped, shutdown and terminated |
| Image ID | Image ID of the AMI used to launch the instance. |
| AMILaunch Index | The AMI launch index, which can be used to find this instance within the launch group. |
| Public DNS Name | The public DNS name assigned to the instance. This DNS name is contactable from outside the Amazon EC2 network. |
| Private DNS Name | The private DNS name assigned to the instance. This DNS name can only be used inside the Amazon EC2 network. |
| Public IP Address | The IP address of the instance. |
| Private IP Address | The private IP address assigned to the instance. |
| KeyPair Name | The name of the key pair, if this instance was launched with an associated key pair. |
| Platform | Indicates the platform of the instance (eg: Windows) |
| Availability Zone | The instance's availability zone. |
| Architecture | The architecture of the image. |
| Ram Disk Id | RAM disk associated with this instance. |
| Kernel Id | Kernel associated with this instance. |
| Root Device Type | The root device type used by the AMI. The AMI can use an Amazon EBS or instance store root device. |
| Root Device Name | The name of the root device used by the AMI. |
| Monitoring | Indicates whether monitoring is enabled for the instance. |
| Termination Protection | Indicates whether the instance can be terminated through the Amazon EC2 console, CLI, or API. If enabled, the instance cannot be terminated. |
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