In order to monitor your compute resources to ensure they are performing properly, you must record performance related metrics. In this simple lab, you were able to create an EC2 instance and generate a simulated high-load situation to observe how CloudWatch can be used to monitor those resources. These are important concepts that you should use across all of your compute resources to ensure you are meeting PERF7 - “How do you monitor your resources to ensure they are performing?"
Now that you know how to have an EC2 instance report its metrics to CloudWatch, you should define the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure workload performance. In some cases, such as a image rendering farm, a high-cpu may be a valid metric and not be indicative of performance. Once defined, you should establish CloudWatch alarms to ensure you are meeting your performance metrics.
In addition to the lab tasks, feel free to use this lab deployment to test some additional CloudWatch features:
Now that you have completed the lab, if you have implemented this knowledge in your environment, you should re-evaluate the questions in the Well-Architected tool. This lab specifically helps you with PERF7 - “How do you monitor your resources to ensure they are performing?"
Click here to access the Well-Architected Tool