1. Amazon CloudWatch
Purpose: Monitor and manage your AWS resources and applications.
Key Features:
Metrics Collection: Collects and tracks metrics for AWS services and custom metrics from your applications.
Alarms: Set alarms to send notifications or automatically make changes based on predefined thresholds.
Logs: Collect and analyze log files from Amazon EC2, AWS CloudTrail, and other sources.
Events: Respond to changes in your AWS resources using CloudWatch Events.
Dashboards: Create custom dashboards to visualize metrics and alarms.
Use Cases:
Monitoring EC2 instance performance.
Tracking application logs.
Setting up automated responses to infrastructure changes.
2. AWS CloudTrail
Purpose: Track user activity and API usage for auditing and governance.
Key Features:
Event History: Detailed logs of AWS account activity, including API calls.
Insights: Detect unusual activity in your AWS account with CloudTrail Insights.
Integration: Works with CloudWatch for real-time monitoring and with AWS Config for configuration auditing.
Use Cases:
Auditing AWS account activity.
Detecting security issues.
Troubleshooting operational problems.
3. AWS X-Ray
Purpose: Analyze and debug distributed applications.
Key Features:
Trace Requests: Trace requests as they travel through your application.
Service Map: Visualize service architecture and performance bottlenecks.
Anomalies Detection: Identify performance issues and errors.
Use Cases:
Understanding application performance.
Identifying root causes of errors.
Optimizing the performance of microservices.
4. Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics
Purpose: Monitor application endpoints and APIs using canary scripts.
Key Features:
Canaries: Run tests on your endpoints to monitor availability and performance.
Alerts: Set up alarms for canary failures or performance issues.
Detailed Reports: Get detailed insights into the availability and performance of your applications.
Use Cases:
Monitoring website uptime.
Testing APIs.
Ensuring user experience.
5. AWS Config
Purpose: Track and audit configurations of your AWS resources.
Key Features:
Configuration History: Record and track changes to resource configurations.
Compliance: Evaluate resource configurations for compliance with desired settings.
Rules and Conformance Packs: Use predefined and custom rules to check compliance.
Use Cases:
Compliance auditing.
Security analysis.
Configuration change tracking.
6. Amazon GuardDuty
Purpose: Threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity.
Key Features:
Intelligent Threat Detection: Uses machine learning, anomaly detection, and integrated threat intelligence.
Continuous Monitoring: Monitors AWS accounts, workloads, and data stored in S3.
Alerts: Provides detailed security findings for quick remediation.
Use Cases:
Security monitoring.
Intrusion detection.
Threat analysis.
7. AWS Security Hub
Purpose: Centralize security and compliance findings.
Key Features:
Integration: Aggregates findings from multiple AWS services like GuardDuty, Inspector, and Macie.
Compliance Standards: Automates checks against security standards such as CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark.
Central Dashboard: Unified view of security and compliance status.
Use Cases:
Unified security management.
Compliance monitoring.
Security posture assessment.
8. Amazon EventBridge
Purpose: Serverless event bus to connect application data from your apps, AWS services, and SaaS apps.
Key Features:
Event Routing: Routes events from various sources to AWS Lambda, Step Functions, and other services.
Event Patterns: Define rules to match incoming events and route them to the appropriate targets.
Schema Registry: Store and manage schemas for event data.
Use Cases:
Building event-driven applications.
Integrating with third-party SaaS applications.
Automating workflows.
9. AWS CloudFormation
Purpose: Model and set up your Amazon Web Services resources.
Key Features:
Templates: Define infrastructure as code using JSON or YAML templates.
Stack Management: Create, update, and delete stacks of resources in a predictable manner.
Drift Detection: Detect changes in resource configurations that deviate from the templates.
Use Cases:
Infrastructure provisioning.
Version control for infrastructure.
Automated deployments.
10. Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights
Purpose: Detect common problems with your applications and infrastructure.
Key Features:
Auto-detection: Automatically detects application and infrastructure issues.
Correlation: Correlates metrics and logs to identify root causes.
Recommendations: Provides insights and recommendations for troubleshooting.
Use Cases:
Proactive application monitoring.
Rapid troubleshooting.
Performance optimization.
differences between Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail:
| Feature | Amazon CloudWatch | AWS CloudTrail |
| Purpose | Monitor performance and health of AWS resources and applications | Track user activity and API usage for auditing and compliance |
| Key Features |
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| Data Types |
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| Use Cases |
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| Data Retention | - Metrics: 1-minute data points for 15 days, 5-minute data points for 63 days | - Event logs: 90 days by default, longer retention in S3 |
| Integration with Other Services | - Integrates with various AWS services for performance monitoring | - Integrates with CloudWatch for real-time monitoring, AWS Config for compliance auditing |
| Scope and Focus | - Operational performance and health monitoring | - Security, compliance, and auditing |
This table provides a clear comparison of Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail, highlighting their respective purposes, key features, data types, use cases, data retention policies, integration capabilities, and focus areas.
Summary
| Service | Limitation/Quota |
| CloudWatch |
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| X-Ray |
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| CloudTrail |
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