Cloudwatch
Definition & Interview Answers for CloudWatch
1. What is Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service that provides real-time metrics, logs, and alarms for AWS resources and applications. It helps track performance, health, and operational data from AWS services like EC2, RDS, Lambda, and custom application metrics. CloudWatch also enables setting up alarms, dashboards, and automated actions to respond to system changes.
💡 Example Answer: "Amazon CloudWatch is a fully managed monitoring service that collects and visualizes logs, metrics, and events from AWS services and applications. It helps with performance optimization, troubleshooting, and setting up alerts for automated responses."
2. What are the Key Features of CloudWatch?
Metrics
Monitors AWS services (EC2, RDS, Lambda, etc.) and custom application metrics.
Logs
Collects, stores, and analyzes application and system logs.
Alarms
Triggers actions (SNS notifications, auto-scaling, etc.) based on metric thresholds.
Dashboards
Provides visual insights into resource performance.
Events
Automates actions based on system events.
Insights
Advanced analytics for logs and metrics.
3. What is the Difference Between CloudWatch Logs, Metrics, and Alarms?
CloudWatch Metrics
Numeric time-series data collected from AWS resources.
Monitoring CPU utilization, network traffic, memory usage.
CloudWatch Logs
Stores, filters, and analyzes log data from applications and AWS services.
Debugging application issues, tracking API calls.
CloudWatch Alarms
Triggers actions when metric thresholds are breached.
Auto-scaling EC2 instances, sending notifications on high CPU usage.
4. When to Use CloudWatch?
Monitor AWS resources: Track EC2, RDS, Lambda, and application health.
Set up alerts & auto-scaling: Use alarms to trigger actions.
Analyze logs: Detect application issues and security threats.
Create dashboards: Gain insights into performance trends.
Automate responses: Trigger Lambda functions or send notifications based on system changes.
5. Common Interview Questions on CloudWatch
Q1: How does CloudWatch differ from CloudTrail?
💡 Answer: "CloudWatch monitors performance metrics, logs, and events for AWS resources, while CloudTrail records API activity and user actions across AWS services. CloudWatch is used for operational monitoring, whereas CloudTrail is used for security and compliance auditing."
Q2: How do you set up an alarm in CloudWatch?
💡 Answer: "To set up an alarm in CloudWatch, go to the AWS Console → CloudWatch → Alarms → Create Alarm. Select a metric (e.g., CPU utilization), define a threshold, set up an SNS notification, and specify an action (e.g., scale EC2 or send an alert)."
Q3: Can you monitor memory and disk utilization of an EC2 instance using CloudWatch?
💡 Answer: "By default, CloudWatch does not collect memory and disk utilization for EC2 instances. However, you can enable it by installing the CloudWatch Agent on the instance, which collects custom metrics like memory usage and disk space."
Q4: What is CloudWatch Logs Insights?
💡 Answer: "CloudWatch Logs Insights is an advanced query tool that allows you to analyze and search logs efficiently using a SQL-like query language. It helps filter logs, detect anomalies, and gain insights into application behavior."
Q5: How do you forward logs from an EC2 instance to CloudWatch Logs?
💡 Answer: "Install and configure the CloudWatch Agent, specify the log file paths in the agent configuration, and start the agent to forward logs to CloudWatch Logs."
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