AWS CloudWatch Dashboards Summary

AWS CloudWatch Dashboards provide a centralized platform for monitoring and managing AWS resources across multiple regions and accounts. They offer flexibility in displaying metrics and alarms, facilitating comprehensive oversight of AWS environments.

Key Features:

• Global Access: Dashboards can display data from multiple AWS regions and accounts, enabling a unified view of metrics across geographical and organizational boundaries.
• Customization: Users can create custom dashboards with a variety of widgets, including graphs, numbers, text, and tables, to monitor different metrics relevant to their AWS resources.
• Automatic and Custom Dashboards: CloudWatch supports both automatically generated dashboards for specific AWS services and custom dashboards for tailored monitoring needs.
• Time Zone and Time Range Adjustments: Users can modify the time zone and time range for the data displayed on the dashboard for precise monitoring.
• Automatic Refresh: Dashboards can be configured to refresh automatically, ensuring the data displayed is up to date.
• Sharing: Dashboards can be shared with users who do not have an AWS account, enhancing collaboration and visibility.

Pricing:

• Free Tier: Up to three dashboards and 50 metrics for free.
• Additional Costs: $3 per dashboard per month after exceeding the free tier limits.

Creating a Dashboard:

1. Access CloudWatch: Navigate to the CloudWatch service in the AWS Management Console.
2. Dashboard Creation: Choose to create a new dashboard and select the type of widgets to add, such as metrics, alarms, or logs.
3. Custom Metrics: Incorporate custom metrics using the put metric data API for detailed monitoring.
4. Cross-Region Metrics: Add metrics from different AWS regions to a single dashboard for a comprehensive view.
5. Saving and Sharing: Once the dashboard is configured, save and share it with relevant stakeholders for collaborative monitoring.

Practical Use Cases:

• Auto-Scaling Monitoring: Create dashboards to monitor auto-scaling groups and their performance metrics.