Skip to content

Is it possible to install and config the CloudWatch agent on an RDS instance?

0

Hi re:Post,

Is it possible to install and config the CloudWatch agent on an RDS instance?

As it is a managed instance, we cannot determine if this is possible from reading: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/install-CloudWatch-Agent-commandline-fleet.html

Thank you for your time and help!

Best Regards, Donald

3 Answers
3

No, but it is not needed, because, by default, Amazon RDS automatically sends metric data to CloudWatch in 1-minute periods. See: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/cw-metrics-overview.html

AWS
EXPERT
answered 2 years ago
EXPERT
reviewed 2 years ago
  • Hi Govardhanan - Thank you for your quick reply, help, and the link. Not to duplicate or waste your time, but I did posed below in another reply post too: We would like to know how much disk space is still available for the RDS instance's OS. As we'd like to know when it is getting low and overall usage. Overall - what happens when an RDS instance's OS disk space fills up ? Thank you! Best Regards, Donald

1
Accepted Answer

The easiest and most powerful way to deal with storage scaling is to use Amazon Aurora. It uses a similar (likely the same) underlying storage platform as DynamoDB, with cross-AZ replication decoupled from the database engine, delivering substantial performance and durability benefits. It also allows storage to scale both up and down automatically, allowing you also to decrease costs when your storage requirements decrease. There are more details on storage scaling on Aurora in this documentation article: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/Aurora.Overview.StorageReliability.html#aurora-storage-growth

For non-Aurora variants of RDS, depending a bit on the choice of database engine, you may have the option of enabling autoscaling to grow storage space automatically: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_PIOPS.StorageTypes.html#USER_PIOPS.Autoscaling

Alternatively, you can use the CloudWatch metrics RDS delivers automatically (without you having to install any agents) to monitor and alert on space consumption: https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/storage-full-rds-cloudwatch-alarm

EXPERT
answered 2 years ago
EXPERT
reviewed 2 years ago
1

No, it isn't possible, but it shouldn't be generally necessary, because AWS collects the generally needed metrics, logs, and so on from the database service on your behalf. Are you perhaps looking for some custom data points that aren't covered by the standard metrics of RDS?

EXPERT
answered 2 years ago
  • Hi Leo - Thank you for your quick reply and help! We would like to know how much disk space is still available for the RDS instance's OS. As we'd like to know when it is getting low and overall usage. Overall - what happens when an RDS instance's OS disk space fills up ? Thank you! Best Regards, Donald

  • One of the benefits of RDS is that in most all cases, it's a managed footprint meaning that the specifics related to the OS are invisible to the user and managed by AWS. As such, there's no need for users to worry about OS space for most every RDS footprint.

You are not logged in. Log in to post an answer.

A good answer clearly answers the question and provides constructive feedback and encourages professional growth in the question asker.