AWS CloudWatch collects monitoring and operational data in metrics, logs, and events, which it then visualizes using automated dashboards to provide a unified view of your AWS applications, resources, and services. CloudWatch can collect monitoring and operational data in both AWS and on-premises environments.
What is the difference between CloudWatch and CloudTrail?
- CloudWatch is a tool provided by Amazon Web Services that monitors and reports on the performance of various AWS resources and services.
- CloudTrail, on the other hand, is a log of all actions in your AWS environment since it was first launched.
AWS CloudWatch
AWS CloudWatch is a monitoring service. That means it allows you to monitor the performance of your AWS resources and applications.
Where would you use AWS CloudWatch?
- To analyze logs - CloudWatch is useful in exploring and analyzing logs. Why would you do that? By analyzing your logs, you might find issues that can be addressed to improve the performance of your applications. Besides that, when a resource/application fails, you can determine what happened and why by looking at the logs.
- To monitor your applications - For instance, you could monitor EC2 metrics such as CPU utilization, memory used, status check, network throughput, and more. It gives you insights about your application so you can act accordingly. For example, if you notice an EC2 instance is nearing capacity you can add another one to avoid degraded performance or downtime.
- To optimize your resources - With CloudWatch, you can specify what happens when a specific threshold is met or not. For example, terminate an EC2 instance if a condition is met. Or create additional instances to support more traffic.
Moreover, AWS CloudWatch is made up of multiple monitoring tools such as:
- Events - You can trigger an action based on an event. For instance, we could create an event that sends an email to the administrator when a resource fails. You specify how and when to trigger an action. Then you define what action to trigger. Thus, CloudWatch events are very useful.
- Alarms - With alarms, you need to define a threshold, a condition, and what to trigger. The most popular scenario is an alarm for billing. That is, trigger an alarm if the estimated charges are greater than the threshold set.
- Logs - CloudWatch logs allow you to store the log files for various sources such as EC2 instances, CloudTrail, and many more. You can then use these logs to detect issues, find leaks, patterns, and so on.
Finally, AWS CloudWatch is an excellent service that you can use to monitor the performance and metrics of your resources and applications that run in AWS. It helps you to improve and scale your applications. It also enables you to stay within a budget, and thus not having unwanted costs. Consider CloudWatch as a person that watches your applications to make sure they work correctly, and at the best prices.
AWS CloudTrail
Consider AWS CloudTrail as a detective that watches over your AWS account and environment. It provides information on:
- What action was taken
- Who performed it
- When the action was taken
- Where the action was taken
For instance, let’s say your S3 bucket was deleted by mistake. You can use AWS CloudTrail to see who deleted the bucket, when, and where (e.g. API Call or from the AWS Management console).
Thus, the primary use case for AWS CloudTrail is to monitor the activity in your AWS environment. Additionally, CloudTrail is compliance support due to providing a history of activity in your AWS environment. So it’s easy to ensure your business is adhering to regulatory standards and internal policies.
The difference between AWS CloudWatch and CloudTrail
AWS CloudWatch monitors your AWS resources and applications, whereas CloudTrail monitors the activity in your AWS environment. For instance, with CloudWatch, you can scale your applications, whereas, with CloudTrail, you can see who did what to your applications.you might find issues. They are not mutually exclusive, and you can set CloudTrail to send events to a CloudWatch log, for instance.
Remember:
- CloudWatch monitors performance, whereas CloudTrail monitors actions in your AWS environment.
S.No. AWS Cloudwatch AWS Cloudtrail 1. It is mainly concerned with happenings on AWS resources. It is mainly concerned with what is done on AWS and by whom. 2. It is a monitoring service for AWS resources and applications. It records API activity in the AWS account. 3. Using Cloudwatch you can track metrics and monitor log files. You can also set alarm for various events. CloudTrail provides greater visibility into user activity by tracking AWS console actions including who made the call, from which IP address and when. 4. It specifically records the application logs. It provides information about what occurred in your AWS account. 5. It delivers metric data in 1 minute period for detailed monitoring and 5 minute periods for basic monitoring. It delivers an event within 15 minutes of the API call. 6. It stores data in its own dashboard in the form of metrics and logs. It can centralize all the logs across regions and even across many accounts and store them on S3 bucket. 7. It offers free basic monitoring resources by default, such as EC2 instances, RDS, etc. It is enabled by default when AWS account is created and start working from then. 8. AWS CloudWatch focuses on the health of aws resources. AWS CloudTrail focuses on the activities performed inside the aws environment. 9. It provides offers to collect, analyze and monitor applications health. It provides Auditing services for AWS accounts. 10. In CloudWatch, Logs are saved in Particular group. In CloudTrail, Logs are saved in S3 Bucket. 11. AWS CloudWatch is available in free and premium pricing models. AWS CloudTrail is free. If you want to put up a single trail to deliver a single copy of management events. 12. Companies using CloudWatch are Airbnb and 9GAG. Companies using CloudTrail are Netflix and Slack.
