CloudWatch Monitoring Scripts Updated

We have added three new features to the CloudWatch Monitoring Scripts for Linux. These scripts can be run in the background to periodically report system metrics to Amazon CloudWatch, where they will be stored for two weeks

When you install the scripts you can choose to report any desired combination of the following metrics:

• Memory Utilization – Memory allocated by applications and the operating system, exclusive of caches and buffers, in percentages.
• Memory Used – Memory allocated by applications and the operating system, exclusive of caches and buffers, in megabytes.
• Memory Available – System memory available for applications and the operating system, in megabytes.
• Disk Space Utilization – Disk space usage as percentages.
• Disk Space Used – Disk space usage in gigabytes.
• Disk Space Available – Available disk space in gigabytes.
• Swap Space Utilization – Swap space usage as a percentage.
• Swap Space Used – Swap space usage in megabytes.

You can measure and report on disk space for one or more mount points or directories.

Here’s what’s new:

• IAM Role Support – The CloudWatch monitoring scripts now use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to submit memory and disk metrics to CloudWatch.
• Auto Scaling – You can now use the metrics generated by the scripts to drive scaling decisions in conjunction with EC2’s Auto Scaling feature. For example, you could choose to scale up when average memory utilization reaches a predetermined percentage.
• Aggregate Metrics – The scripts can now report aggregate metrics. Metrics of this type allow you to monitor memory and disk usage for multiple EC2 instances. You could, for example, monitor total memory utilization across all of your instances in a single aggregate metrics.

You can download the CloudWatch Monitoring Scripts for Linux, read the documentation, and start using these new features today.

— Jeff;