nOutput AWSCloudWatch

Outputs a set of attributes metrics to AWS CloudWatch. Only attribute numeric values will be output.

Example of use of the execArgs

output:
  name       : Output AWS CloudWatch
  chSubscribe: nattrmon::cvals
  execFrom   : nOutput_AWSCloudWatch
  execArgs   :
    #include       :
    #exclude       :
    #includeDim    :
    #excludeDim    :
    #- pod
    #unitByMetric  :
    #  Service_Memory_Metrics_Amount: "Bytes"
    #considerSetAll: true
    #region        : us-east-1
    #logGroup      : nattrmon
    #accessKey     : AKI1234567
    #secretKey     : A1B2C3D4E5F6G7
    #sessionToken  :
    #debug         : true

Description of execArgs

execArgs	Type	Mandatory	Description
include	Array	No	An array of attribute names to restrict which attributes should be output
exclude	Array	No	An array of attribute names to exclude from output
includeDim	Array	No	An array of labels to include on output
excludeDim	Array	No	An array of labels to exclude from output
unitByMetric	Map	No	Optional unit to report per metric (the metric is the attribute name after replacing each “ “ and “/” with “_”) (*)
considerSetAll	Boolean	No	If true will process attributes in bulk (defaults to true)
region	String	No	The AWS region to use for AWS CloudWatch (defaults to us-east-1)
logGroup	String	No	The AWS CloudWatch log group to use (defaults to nattrmon)
accessKey	String	No	The AWS API access key with permissions to put metrics in AWS CloudWatch
secretKey	String	No	The AWS API secret key with permissions to put metrics in AWS CloudWatch
sessionToken	String	No	The AWS API session token with permissions to put metrics in AWS CloudWatch
debug	Boolean	No	Shows additional information logs in case of error

(*) The list of units by metric, according with AWS documentations, is: Seconds, Microseconds, Milliseconds, Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes, Bits, Kilobits, Megabits, Gigabits, Terabits, Percent, Count, Bytes/Second, Kilobytes/Second, Megabytes/Second, Gigabytes/Second, Terabytes/Second, Bits/Second, Kilobits/Second, Megabits/Second, Gigabits/Second, Terabits/Second, Count/Second, None

Note: The accessKey, secretKey and sessionToken are used with the oPack AWS. So they might be required or not depending where nAttrMon is running and which AWS roles are associated. If not defined it will default to other role-based AWS authentication mechanisms.

Necessary AWS permissions

The main AWS permission necessary would be: “cloudwatch:PutMetricData”

Usage

With the right AWS authentication and permissions this output will start sending the necessary metrics to the configured logGroup. On the AWS CloudWatch Metrics console you should see the new AWS CloudWatch group appearing under “Custom namespaces”.

Important tips

Keep in mind that once a metric is sent to AWS CloudWatch it’s not possible (at the moment of writing according with AWS documentation) to delete it. So you should be very careful with what you send. To help with this you can use the include execArgs (as described above) to slowly add new nAttrMon attribute values as needed.
For multiple entries (table/array) attribute values, the alpha-numeric values will be translated into AWS CloudWatch dimensions. It’s not possible to generically cover all cases but some of these values might not be helpful in AWS CloudWatch. For example, if you are using nInput_Kube_PodsMetrics it will output the attributes: namespace, name, pod, cpuAmount and memAmount. From theses 5 attributes, only cpuAmount and memAmount are numeric. So the other 3 will be converted to dimensions. Since pods get created and destroyed the attribute pod will have multiple values and won’t be helpful as a dimension poluting AWS CloudWatch metrics. To avoid this use the excludeDim execArg to ensure that the pod is not used.
On the initial setup use the debug execArg to ensure no errors are occurring while trying to put metrics in AWS CloudWatch. Debug adds extra verbose to nAttrMon logs so you can control to turn on or off as needed.