Amazon CloudWatch Complete Guide: From Basics to Pro

Module 1: Introduction to Monitoring & CloudWatch

I will introduce you to the fundamentals of cloud monitoring and why Amazon CloudWatch is essential for managing your AWS resources. You’ll learn about key CloudWatch features like metrics, logs, alarms, and dashboards, plus real-world use cases in DevOps, troubleshooting, and automation.

Module 2: CloudWatch Metrics

You’ll understand the difference between default and custom metrics, and how to collect important EC2 metrics such as CPU, disk, and network usage. Together, we’ll explore the CloudWatch Console to view and analyze these metrics hands-on.

Module 3: CloudWatch Logs

I’ll guide you through CloudWatch Logs, explaining log groups and streams. You’ll learn how to send your application logs to CloudWatch, filter and search logs efficiently, and stream EC2 logs to CloudWatch with practical exercises.

Module 4: CloudWatch Alarms

We’ll dive into alarms in CloudWatch, including static and anomaly detection alarms. I will show you how to set thresholds for critical metrics like CPU, disk, and memory, and we’ll create an alarm together for EC2 CPU utilization above 80%.

Module 5: CloudWatch Dashboards

I’ll teach you how to create customizable dashboards using widgets, combining multiple metrics into a single view. We’ll build a real-time EC2 monitoring dashboard together to visualize your infrastructure health.

Module 6: CloudWatch Agent

Learn why the CloudWatch Agent is important, how to install it on EC2 instances, and configure it for memory and disk metrics. You will get hands-on experience sending custom metrics using the agent.

Module 7: CloudWatch with SNS (Notifications)

You’ll be introduced to Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) and how to connect CloudWatch alarms to SNS for real-time alerts. Together, we’ll set up email notifications for critical resource utilization events.

Module 8: CloudWatch Logs Insights

I’ll help you master Logs Insights for querying and analyzing log data. You will write queries to troubleshoot your applications and run hands-on exercises to detect errors from logs.

Module 9: CloudWatch Events & Automation

Explore CloudWatch Events and EventBridge. I will demonstrate how to create rules to automate actions like auto-stopping or starting EC2 instances based on schedules. You’ll get hands-on creating automation rules to simplify cloud management.

Module 10: Best Practices & Real-World Scenarios

Together, we’ll cover CloudWatch pricing, security, and access control best practices. I will guide you in designing effective monitoring strategies for production systems, illustrated with real-world case studies including auto-scaling, Lambda monitoring, and centralized logging.

Final Project (Hands-On)

You will apply everything you’ve learned by:

• Setting up the CloudWatch Agent on EC2

• Creating a monitoring dashboard for CPU, memory, and disk metrics

• Configuring alarms with SNS email alerts

• Using Logs Insights to analyze application logs

• Automating EC2 instance stop/start using CloudWatch Events