Module 7 - Monitoring and Analytics

Question 1

What is Amazon CloudWatch? (explain CloudWatch Alarms)

Answer 1

A web service that enables you to monitor and manage various metrics and configure alarm actions based on data from those metrics
- AWS services send metrics to CloudWatch → CloudWatch then uses these metrics to create graphs automatically that show how performance has changed over time

CloudWatch Alarms → create alarms that automatically perform actions if the value of your metric has gone above or below a predefined threshold

Question 2

What is AWS CloudTrail?

Answer 2

AWS CloudTrail records API calls for your account - recorded information includes the identity of the API caller, the time of the API call, the source IP address of the API caller, etc
- think of CloudTrail as a “trail” of breadcrumbs (or a log of actions) that someone has left behind them
- additional feature - CloudTrail Insights → optional feature that allows CloudTrail to automatically detect unusual API activities in your AWS account

Question 3

What is AWS Trusted Advisor? (five categories)

Answer 3

A web service that inspects your AWS environment and provides real-time recommendations in accordance with AWS best practices
- main categories for recommendations:
1. cost optimisation
2. performance
3. security
4. fault tolerance
5. service limits