Amazon CloudWatch and Clarify Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin will pull Metric Statistics from Amazon CloudWatch, streamlining the process of monitoring and analyzing AWS resources.

The Clarify plugin allows users to publish Telegraf metrics directly to Clarify, enabling enhanced analysis and monitoring capabilities.

Integration details

Amazon CloudWatch

The Amazon CloudWatch Plugin allows users to pull detailed metric statistics from Amazon’s CloudWatch service. As a monitoring solution, CloudWatch enables users to track various metrics related to AWS resources and applications, facilitating improved operational and performance insights. The plugin uses a structured authentication method that prioritizes security and flexibility through a combination of STS (Security Token Service), shared credentials, environment variables, and EC2 instance profiles, ensuring robust access control to AWS resources. Key features include the ability to define specific metric namespaces, aggregated periods for metrics, and optional inclusion of linked accounts for cross-account monitoring. A significant aspect of this plugin is its capacity to handle both sparse and dense metric formats, allowing for varied output structures depending on user preference. Thus, it supports versatile use cases in cloud monitoring and analytics by providing comprehensive, timely data directly from CloudWatch.

Clarify

This plugin facilitates the writing of Telegraf metrics to Clarify, a platform for managing and analyzing time series data. By transforming metrics into Clarify signals, this output plugin enables seamless integration of collected telemetry data into the Clarify ecosystem. Users must obtain valid credentials, either through a credentials file or basic authentication, to configure the plugin. The configuration also provides options for fine-tuning how metrics are mapped to signals in Clarify, including the ability to specify unique identifiers using tags. Given that Clarify supports only floating point values, the plugin ensures that any unsupported types are effectively filtered out during the publishing process. This comprehensive connectivity aligns with use cases in monitoring, data analysis, and operational insights.

Configuration

Amazon CloudWatch

[[inputs.cloudwatch]]
  region = "us-east-1"
  # access_key = ""
  # secret_key = ""
  # token = ""
  # role_arn = ""
  # web_identity_token_file = ""
  # role_session_name = ""
  # profile = ""
  # shared_credential_file = ""
  # include_linked_accounts = false
  # endpoint_url = ""
  # use_system_proxy = false
  # http_proxy_url = "http://localhost:8888"
  period = "5m"
  delay = "5m"
  interval = "5m"
  #recently_active = "PT3H"
  # cache_ttl = "1h"
  namespaces = ["AWS/ELB"]
  # metric_format = "sparse"
  # ratelimit = 25
  # timeout = "5s"
  # batch_size = 500
  # statistic_include = ["average", "sum", "minimum", "maximum", sample_count]
  # statistic_exclude = []
  # [[inputs.cloudwatch.metrics]]
  #  names = ["Latency", "RequestCount"]
  #  [[inputs.cloudwatch.metrics.dimensions]]
  #    name = "LoadBalancerName"
  #    value = "p-example"

Clarify

[[outputs.clarify]]
  ## Credentials File (Oauth 2.0 from Clarify integration)
  credentials_file = "/path/to/clarify/credentials.json"

  ## Clarify username password (Basic Auth from Clarify integration)
  username = "i-am-bob"
  password = "secret-password"

  ## Timeout for Clarify operations
  # timeout = "20s"

  ## Optional tags to be included when generating the unique ID for a signal in Clarify
  # id_tags = []
  # clarify_id_tag = 'clarify_input_id'

Input and output integration examples

Amazon CloudWatch

1. Cross-Account Monitoring: Utilize this plugin to monitor resources across multiple AWS accounts by enabling the include_linked_accounts option. This scenario allows companies managing multiple AWS accounts to aggregate metrics into a central monitoring dashboard, providing a unified view of all metrics while ensuring secure data access and compliance through proper role management.

2. Dynamic Alerting System: Integrate this plugin with alerting tools to create an automated system that triggers alerts based on defined thresholds for CloudWatch metrics. For instance, if latency metrics exceed specified limits, alerts can be sent to relevant teams, enabling proactive responses to performance issues and reducing downtime.

3. Cost Management Dashboard: Use the metrics gathered from the plugin to build a cost management dashboard that visualizes AWS service usage metrics over time. By correlating these metrics with billing data, organizations can identify high-cost services and take informed actions to optimize their resource usage and spending.

4. Performance Benchmarking for Applications: Leverage the metrics collected from applications running on AWS to perform performance benchmarks. For example, by tracking latency and request count metrics for an ELB, developers can assess the impact of application changes on its performance, making data-driven decisions for optimization.

Clarify

1. Automated Data Monitoring: By integrating the Clarify plugin with sensor data collection, organizations can automate the monitoring of environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity. The plugin processes metrics in real-time, sending updates to Clarify where they can be analyzed for trends, alerts, and historical tracking. This use case makes it easier to maintain optimal conditions in data centers or production environments, reducing the risk of equipment failures.

2. Performance Metrics Analysis: Companies can leverage this plugin to send application performance metrics to Clarify. By transmitting key indicators such as response times and error rates, developers and operations teams can utilize Clarify’s capabilities to visualize and analyze application performance over time. This insight can drive improvements in user experience and help identify areas in need of optimization.

3. Sensor Data Aggregation: Utilizing the plugin to push data from multiple sensors to Clarify allows for a comprehensive view of physical environments. This aggregation is particularly beneficial in sectors such as agriculture, where metrics from various sensors can be correlated to decision-making about resource allocations, pest control, and crop management. The plugin ensures the data is accurately mapped and transformed for effective analysis.

4. Real-Time Alerts and Notifications: Implement the Clarify plugin to trigger real-time alerts based on predefined thresholds within the metrics being sent. For instance, if temperature readings exceed certain levels, alerts can be generated and sent to operational staff. This proactive approach allows for immediate responses to potential issues, enhancing operational reliability and safety.

Feedback

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