AWS CloudWatch Integration

Integrate Tacnode with AWS CloudWatch to centralize your monitoring and alerting infrastructure. This integration enables you to push Tacnode metrics to CloudWatch, view them in the AWS Console, and set up sophisticated alerting based on your operational requirements.

Integration Benefits

Centralized Monitoring

Unified dashboard for all AWS services and Tacnode metrics
Consistent monitoring experience across your infrastructure
Simplified operational procedures and training

Advanced Alerting Capabilities

CloudWatch alarm integration with SNS, Lambda, and other AWS services
Sophisticated alerting rules and escalation procedures
Integration with existing incident management systems

Long-term Retention and Analysis

Extended metric retention periods
Advanced analytics with CloudWatch Insights
Cost-effective storage for historical monitoring data

Prerequisites

Before configuring CloudWatch integration, ensure you have:

Active AWS account with CloudWatch service enabled
Appropriate IAM permissions for CloudWatch operations
Tacnode instance with administrative access
Understanding of AWS IAM roles and policies

Configuration Steps

Step 1: Create IAM Permission Policy

Create a dedicated policy for Tacnode metric operations in CloudWatch.

Navigate to IAM Policy Management
- Go to the AWS IAM Console
- Select "Policies" from the navigation menu

Create New Policy

Click "Create policy"
Choose "JSON" tab for policy editor
Enter the following policy definition:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "TacnodeCloudWatchAccess",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricData",
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
                "cloudwatch:TagResource",
                "cloudwatch:UntagResource"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Save Policy
- Name the policy TacnodeCloudWatchPushPolicy
- Add description: "Allows Tacnode to push metrics to CloudWatch"
- Click "Create policy"

Step 2: Create IAM Role

Set up an IAM role that Tacnode can assume to push metrics to CloudWatch.

Navigate to IAM Roles
- Go to IAM Console → Roles
- Click "Create role"

Configure Trust Policy

Select "Custom trust policy"
Replace {ACCOUNT_ID} with your actual AWS account ID:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::{ACCOUNT_ID}:root"
            },
            "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
            "Condition": {}
        }
    ]
}

Attach Permissions
- Search for and select TacnodeCloudWatchPushPolicy
- Click "Next" to continue
Finalize Role Creation
- Role name: TacnodeMetricsRole
- Description: "Role for Tacnode to push metrics to CloudWatch"
- Review settings and click "Create role"
Copy Role ARN
- Navigate to the created role
- Copy the Role ARN for use in Tacnode configuration

Step 3: Configure Tacnode CloudWatch Integration

Set up the CloudWatch subscription in your Tacnode console.

Access Integration Settings
- Log into your Tacnode console
- Navigate to Settings → Integrations → CloudWatch
Configure Integration Parameters
- Namespace: Custom CloudWatch namespace (e.g., Tacnode/Production)
- Role ARN: Paste the IAM role ARN from previous step
- AWS Region: Select your target AWS region:
  - us-west-2 for US West (Oregon)
  - us-east-1 for US East (N. Virginia)
  - ap-northeast-1 for Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
  - eu-west-1 for Europe (Ireland)
Test and Activate
- Click "Test Connection" to validate configuration
- Save settings once validation succeeds
- Enable the integration to start metric flow

Viewing Metrics in AWS Console

Accessing CloudWatch Metrics

Navigate to CloudWatch
- Open AWS CloudWatch Console
- Select "Metrics" from the left navigation
Browse Tacnode Metrics
- Look for your custom namespace (e.g., Tacnode/Production)
- Explore available metric dimensions and names
- Create custom dashboards for operational monitoring

Available Metric Categories

Nodegroup Metrics:

Resource utilization (CPU, memory)
Query performance (QPS, latency)
Network throughput
Connection counts

Database Metrics:

Storage usage and growth
Transaction rates
Backup metrics

System Health Metrics:

Error rates and failed queries
Resource contention indicators
Performance degradation signals

Setting Up CloudWatch Alarms

Creating Effective Alerts

Performance Alerts
- High CPU utilization (>80% for 5 minutes)
- High memory usage (>85% for 3 minutes)
- Query latency spikes (P99 > threshold)
Availability Alerts
- Failed query rate increases
- Connection pool exhaustion
- Nodegroup unavailability
Capacity Alerts
- Storage growth rate acceleration
- Approaching resource limits
- Scaling threshold breaches