Looking to keep an eye on logs and metrics from AWS or CloudWatch? There are several reasons you might want to build a CloudWatch dashboard somewhere outside of the CloudWatch console:
- To visualize data from multiple AWS accounts in one place
- To visualize CloudWatch data alongside data locked away in another tool or database
- To share CloudWatch data with someone who doesn’t have access to the console
- To publish CloudWatch data to a wall board
- To setup more complex monitoring and send alerts to Slack, Teams, or ServiceNow
- To automate the creation or modification of dashboards (e.g., with every new release)
Whatever the reason, we’ve put together a write-up to help you plug into CloudWatch to surface any logs or metrics in one place, for easy alerting and sharing, using the SquaredUp observability portal. You can get your own SquaredUp account, just head over to squaredup.com/sign-up for a free account.
Once you’ve logged in, you’re ready to create your first dashboard.
Step 1: Connect to CloudWatch
SquaredUp has 50+ plugins for connecting to popular cloud platforms, monitoring tools, developer tools, databases, and more. Add the CloudWatch plugin to connect it with SquaredUp.
Here’s the list of data that SquaredUp can stream from CloudWatch:
- CloudWatch alarms
- CloudWatch logs
- CodePipeline actions
- CodePipeline executions
- CodePipeline stages
- CodePipeline status
- Cost
- Cost anomalies
- Lambda concurrent executions
- Lambda duration
- Lambda errors
- Synthetic runs
It’s worth noting that SquaredUp won’t ingest all this data at once (i.e., won’t create yet another database). SquaredUp plugins are lightweight connections which leave data in place and stream it on-demand via API (e.g., when viewing it on dashboard). That makes connecting pretty straightforward… just enter an access key ID and a few parameters (target regions, information about the account).
Step 2: Choose the data you want to visualize
Once you’ve configured the plugin, you can create tiles on the dashboard for any data you want to see. Just choose (1) the scope (e.g., a serverless function), (2) a data stream (e.g., lambda duration), and (3) how you want to see that data (e.g., line graph).
Continue adding tiles like this until you have your ideal CloudWatch dashboard.
Step 3: Get more mileage from your dashboard
To put these new insights to use you might want to setup monitoring and configure alerting (e.g., for Slack, Teams, or ServiceNow). Or maybe share it with someone else in the business to get them on the same page.
Good luck, and happy dashboarding!
Related plugins
AWS
Monitor your AWS environment, including EC2, Lambda Functions, CloudWatch and more.
AWS CloudWatch
Plug directly into AWS CloudWatch for instant dashboards, reports and analytics.
SquaredUp has 50+ pre-built plugins for instant access to data.
