Link monitoring accounts with source accounts

The topics in this section explain how to set up links between monitoring accounts and source accounts.

We recommend that you create a new AWS account to serve as the monitoring account for your organization.

Contents

• Necessary permissions
• Setup overview
• Step 1: Set up a monitoring account
• Step 2: (Optional) Download an AWS CloudFormation template or URL
• Step 3: Link the source accounts
  • Use an AWS CloudFormation template to set up all accounts in an organization or an organizational unit as source accounts
  • Use an AWS CloudFormation template to set up individual source accounts
  • Use a URL to set up individual source accounts

Necessary permissions

To create links between a monitoring account and a source account, you must be signed in with certain permissions.

• To set up a monitoring account – You must have either full administrator access in the monitoring account, or you must sign in to that account with the following permissions:

  {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
          {
              "Sid": "AllowSinkModification",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                  "oam:CreateSink",
                  "oam:DeleteSink",
                  "oam:PutSinkPolicy",
                  "oam:TagResource"
              ],
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Sid": "AllowReadOnly",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": ["oam:Get*", "oam:List*"],
              "Resource": "*"
          }
      ]
  }

• Source account, scoped to a specific monitoring account – To create, update, and manage links for just one specified monitoring account, you must sign in to account with at least the following permissions. In this example, the monitoring account is 999999999999.

  If the link isn't going to share all five resource types (metrics, logs, traces, Application Insights applications, and Internet Monitor monitors), you can omit cloudwatch:Link, logs:Link, xray:Link, applicationinsights:Link, or internetmonitor:Link as needed.

  {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
          {
              "Action": [
                  "oam:CreateLink",
                  "oam:UpdateLink",
                  "oam:DeleteLink",
                  "oam:GetLink",
                  "oam:TagResource"
              ],
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "arn:*:oam:*:*:link/*"
          },
          {
              "Action": [
                  "oam:CreateLink",
                  "oam:UpdateLink"
              ],
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "arn:*:oam:*:*:sink/*",
              "Condition": {
                  "StringEquals": {
                      "aws:ResourceAccount": [
                          "999999999999"
                      ]
                  }
              }
          },
          {
              "Action": "oam:ListLinks",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Action": "cloudwatch:Link",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Action": "logs:Link",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Action": "xray:Link",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
               "Action": "applicationinsights:Link",
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Resource": "*"
           },
          {
               "Action": "internetmonitor:Link",
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Resource": "*"
          }
      ]
  }

• Source account, with permissions to link to any monitoring account – To create a link to any existing monitoring account sink and share metrics, log groups, traces, Application Insights applications, and Internet Monitor monitors, you must sign in to the source account with full administrator permissions or sign in there with the following permissions

  If the link isn't going to share all five resource types (metrics, logs, traces, Application Insights applications, and Internet Monitor monitors), you can omit cloudwatch:Link, logs:Link, xray:Link, applicationinsights:Link, or internetmonitor:Link as needed.

  {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [{
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                  "oam:CreateLink",
                  "oam:UpdateLink"
              ],
              "Resource": [
                  "arn:aws:oam:*:*:link/*",
                  "arn:aws:oam:*:*:sink/*"
              ]
          },
          {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                  "oam:List*",
                  "oam:Get*"
              ],
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                  "oam:DeleteLink",
                  "oam:GetLink",
                  "oam:TagResource"
              ],
              "Resource": "arn:aws:oam:*:*:link/*"
          },
          {
              "Action": "cloudwatch:Link",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Action": "xray:Link",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
              "Action": "logs:Link",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
               "Action": "applicationinsights:Link",
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Resource": "*"
          },
          {
               "Action": "internetmonitor:Link",
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Resource": "*"
          }
      ]
  }

Setup overview

The following high-level steps show you how to set up CloudWatch cross-account observability.

Note

We recommend creating a new AWS account to use as your organization's monitoring account.

1. Set up a dedicated monitoring account.

2. (Optional) Download an AWS CloudFormation template or copy a URL to link source accounts.

3. Link source accounts to the monitoring account.

After completing these steps, you can use the monitoring account to view the observability data of the source accounts.

Step 1: Set up a monitoring account

Follow the steps in this section to set up an AWS account as a monitoring account for CloudWatch cross-account observability.

Prerequisites

• If you're setting up accounts in an AWS Organizations organization as the source accounts – Get the organization path or organization ID.

• If you're not using Organizations for the source accounts – Get the account IDs of the source accounts.

To set up an account as a monitoring account, you must have certain permissions. For more information, see Necessary permissions.

To set up a monitoring account

1. Sign in to the account that you want to use as a monitoring account.

2. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

3. In the left navigation pane, choose Settings.

4. By Monitoring account configuration, choose Configure.

5. For Select data, choose whether this monitoring account will be able to view Logs, Metrics, Traces, Application Insights - Applications, and Internet Monitor - Monitors data from the source accounts it is linked to.

6. For List source accounts, enter the source accounts that this monitoring account will view. To identify the source accounts, enter individual account IDs, organization paths, or organization IDs. If you enter an organization path or organization ID, this monitoring account is allowed to view observability data from all linked accounts in that organization.

   Separate the entries in this list with commas.

   Important

   When you enter an organization path, follow the exact format. The ou-id must end with a / (a slash character). For example: o-a1b2c3d4e5/r-f6g7h8i9j0example/ou-def0-awsbbbb/

7. For Define a label to identify your source account, specify whether to use account names or email addresses to identify the source accounts when you use the monitoring account to view them.

8. Choose Configure.

Important

The link between the monitoring and source accounts is not complete until you configure the source accounts. For more information, see the following sections.

Step 2: (Optional) Download an AWS CloudFormation template or URL

To link source accounts to a monitoring account, we recommend using an AWS CloudFormation template or a URL.

• If you are linking an entire organization – CloudWatch provides an AWS CloudFormation template.

• If you are linking individual accounts – Use either an AWS CloudFormation template or a URL that CloudWatch provides.

To use an AWS CloudFormation template, you must download it during these steps. After you link the monitoring account with at least one source account, the AWS CloudFormation template is no longer available to download.

To download an AWS CloudFormation template or copy a URL for linking source accounts to the monitoring account

1. Sign in to the account that you want to use as a monitoring account.

2. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

3. In the left navigation pane, choose Settings.

4. By Monitoring account configuration, choose Resources to link accounts.

5. Do one of the following:

   • Choose AWS organization to get a template to use to link accounts in an organization to this monitoring account.

   • Choose Any account to get a template or URL for setting up individual accounts as source accounts.

6. Do one of the following:

   • If you chose AWS organization, choose Download CloudFormation template.

   • If you chose Any account, choose either Download CloudFormation template or Copy URL.

7. (Optional) Repeat steps 5-6 to download both the AWS CloudFormation template and the URL.

Step 3: Link the source accounts

Use the steps in these sections to link source accounts to a monitoring account.

To link monitoring accounts with source accounts, you must have certain permissions. For more information, see Necessary permissions.

Use an AWS CloudFormation template to set up all accounts in an organization or an organizational unit as source accounts

These steps assume that you already downloaded the necessary AWS CloudFormation template by performing the steps in Step 2: (Optional) Download an AWS CloudFormation template or URL.

To use an AWS CloudFormation template to link accounts in an organization or organizational unit to the monitoring account

1. Sign in to the organization's management account.

2. Open the AWS CloudFormation console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation.

3. In the left navigation bar, choose StackSets.

4. Check that you are signed in to the Region that you want, then choose Create StackSet.

5. Choose Next.

6. Choose Template is ready and choose Upload a template file.

7. Choose Choose file, choose the template that you downloaded from the monitoring account, and choose Open.

8. Choose Next.

9. For Specify StackSet details, enter a name for the StackSet and choose Next.

10. For Add stacks to stack set, choose Deploy new stacks.

11. For Deployment targets, choose whether to deploy to the entire organization or to specified organizational units.

12. For Specify regions, choose which Regions to deploy CloudWatch cross-account observability to.

13. Choose Next.

14. On the Review page, confirm your selected options and choose Submit.

15. In the Stack instances tab, refresh the screen until you see that your stack instances have the status CREATE_COMPLETE.

Use an AWS CloudFormation template to set up individual source accounts

These steps assume that you already downloaded the necessary AWS CloudFormation template by performing the steps in Step 2: (Optional) Download an AWS CloudFormation template or URL.

To use an AWS CloudFormation template to set up individual source accounts for CloudWatch cross-account observability

1. Sign in to the source account.

2. Open the AWS CloudFormation console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation.

3. In the left navigation bar, choose Stacks.

4. Check that you are signed in to the Region that you want, then choose Create stack, With new resources (standard).

5. Choose Next.

6. Choose Upload a template file.

7. Choose Choose file, choose the template that you downloaded from the monitoring account, and choose Open.

8. Choose Next.

9. For Specify stack details, enter a name for the stack and choose Next.

10. On the Configure stack options page, choose Next.

11. On the Review page, choose Submit.

12. On the status page for your stack, refresh the screen until you see that your stack has the status CREATE_COMPLETE.

13. To use this same template to link more source accounts to this monitoring account, sign out of this account and sign in to the next source account. Then repeat steps 2-12.

Use a URL to set up individual source accounts

These steps assume that you already copied the necessary URL by performing the steps in Step 2: (Optional) Download an AWS CloudFormation template or URL.

To use a URL to link individual source accounts to the monitoring account

1. Sign in to the account that you want to use as a source account.

2. Enter the URL that you copied from the monitoring account.

   You see the CloudWatch settings page, with some information filled in.

3. For Select data, choose whether this source account will share Logs, Metrics, Traces, Application Insights - Applications, and Internet Monitor - Monitors data to this monitoring account.

4. Do not change the ARN in Enter monitoring account configuration ARN.

5. The Define a label to identify your source account section is pre-filled with the label choice from the monitoring account. Optionally, choose Edit to change it.

6. Choose Link.

7. Enter Confirm in the box and choose Confirm.

8. To use this same URL to link more source accounts to this monitoring account, sign out of this account and sign in to the next source account. Then repeat steps 2-7.