How to minimize the number of CloudWatch autoscaling alarms created for provisioned table with autoscaling enabled?

Question

I have a table with provisioned capacity mode with autoscaling enabled. I currently get lot of CloudWatch alarms for table autoscaling event in CloudWatch, I don't see any option to purge those alarms in CloudWatch console, all I see is only to hide autoscaling alarms in the console. Hence I'm looking for some recommendations on how to reduce the number of CloudWatch alarms generated for autoscaling event in DynamoDB?

Accepted Answer

To troubleshoot problems with DynamoDB auto scaling, kindly follow the below steps.

- Be sure that you don't delete the CloudWatch alarms that DynamoDB auto scaling creates. When you delete alarms, DynamoDB auto scaling might not work as expected. If you accidentally delete the CloudWatch alarms, then turn off auto scaling and then activate it on the table. CloudWatch automatically recreates the alarms.
- Don't rely on DynamoDB auto scaling to handle occasional short-duration activity spikes. DynamoDB auto scaling works best when there are gradual increases or decreases in traffic. The table's built-in burst capacity handles occasional activity spikes.
- If the table's traffic is frequently unpredictable, then use an UpdateTable operation to set the billing mode to PAY_PER_REQUEST. This activates on-demand mode to adapt throughput to handle the workload.

Reference - https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/dynamodb-auto-scaling

Answer

You cannot purge these alarms, they are important for the scaling of your table. If you remove those, then your table will not scale as you like and you would impact your application availability.

Application Autoscaling is used to scale DynamoDB capacity. To do so, it relies on CloudWatch metrics, which trigger these alarms to fire an event to either scale up or down. While it does seem like a lot of alarms, they are necessary and should be left intact.

![Autoscaling Alarms](/media/postImages/original/IMIemByyzkTSmyLhnWtirW5A)

How to minimize the number of CloudWatch autoscaling alarms created for provisioned table with autoscaling enabled?

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