Route53 health-check with CloudWatch alarms & third-party metrics

Amazon Route 53 does support health checks that can be used in the configuration of DNS failover records, and these health checks can be integrated with CloudWatch alarms. However, there are some limitations to consider regarding external health checks and third-party metrics.

Route 53 offers three main types of health checks:

1. Health checks that monitor endpoints (by IP address or domain name)
2. Health checks that monitor other health checks
3. Health checks that monitor CloudWatch alarms

For your specific question about external health checks and third-party metrics, Route 53 does allow you to use CloudWatch alarms as a basis for health checks. This means you can create a health check that monitors a CloudWatch alarm, which in turn can be based on various metrics.

However, it's important to note that Route 53 has some restrictions when it comes to CloudWatch alarms:

1. Only standard-resolution metrics are supported; high-resolution metrics are not.
2. The supported statistics are Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum, and SampleCount. Extended statistics are not supported.
3. The health check can only monitor a CloudWatch alarm that exists in the same AWS account as the health check.
4. Route 53 does not support alarms that use metric math to query multiple CloudWatch metrics.

Regarding third-party data or metrics from an outside health checker like Grafana, CloudWatch does have the capability to ingest custom metrics. However, the integration between these custom metrics and Route 53 health checks may not be as straightforward as using native AWS metrics.

You can create and manage these health checks and alarms using various methods, including the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, and AWS SDKs. This allows for programmatic creation and management of health checks and alarms, which can be particularly useful for automation and integration into your existing workflows.

In summary, while Route 53 does offer flexibility in terms of using CloudWatch alarms for health checks, there are limitations to consider when it comes to external health checks and third-party metrics. You may need to explore additional AWS services or custom solutions to fully integrate external health checking systems with Route 53 DNS failover configurations.
Sources
Types of Amazon Route 53 health checks - Amazon Route 53
Monitoring health check status and getting notifications - Amazon Route 53
Monitoring health checks using CloudWatch - Amazon Route 53