Create a CloudWatch alarm based on a metric math expression - Amazon CloudWatch

Create a CloudWatch alarm based on a metric math expression

To create an alarm based on a metric math expression, choose one or more CloudWatch metrics to use in the expression. Then, specify the expression, threshold, and evaluation periods.

You can't create an alarm based on the SEARCH expression. This is because search expressions return multiple time series, and an alarm based on a math expression can watch only one time series.

To create an alarm that's based on a metric math expression
  1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Alarms, and then choose All alarms.

  3. Choose Create alarm.

  4. Choose Select Metric, and then perform one of the following actions:

    • Select a namespace from the AWS namespaces dropdown or Custom namespaces dropdown. After you select a namespace, you continue choosing options until a list of metrics appears, where you select the checkbox next to the correct metric.

    • Use the search box to find a metric, account ID, dimension, or resource ID. After you enter the metric, dimension, or resource ID, you continue choosing options until a list of metrics appears, where you select the check box next to the correct metric.

  5. (Optional) If you want to add another metric to a metric math expression, you can use the search box to find a specific metric. You can add as many as 10 metrics to a metric math expression.

  6. Select the Graphed metrics tab. For each of the metrics that you previously added, perform the following actions:

    1. Under the Statistic column, select the dropdown menu. In the dropdown menu, choose one of the predefined statistics or percentiles. Use the search box in the dropdown menu to specify a custom percentile.

    2. Under the Period column, select the dropdown menu. In the dropdown menu, choose one of the predefined evaluation periods.

      While you're creating your alarm, you can specify whether the Y-axis legend appears on the left or right side of your graph.

    Note

    When CloudWatch evaluates alarms, periods are aggregated into single data points.

  7. Choose the Add math dropdown, and then select Start with an empty expression from the list of predefined metric math expressions.

    After you choose Start with an empty expression, a math expression box appears where you apply or edit math expressions.

  8. In the math expression box, enter your math expression, and then choose Apply.

    After you choose Apply, an ID column appears next to the Label column.

    To use a metric or the result of another metric math expression as part of your current math expression's formula, you use the value that's shown under the ID column. To change the value of ID, you select the pen-and-paper icon next to the current value. The new value must begin with a lowercase letter and can include numbers, letters, and the underscore symbol. Changing the value of ID to a more significant name can make your alarm graph easier to understand.

    For information about the functions that are available for metric math, see Metric math syntax and functions.

  9. (Optional) Add more math expressions, using both metrics and the results of other math expressions in the formulas of the new math expressions.

  10. When you have the expression to use for the alarm, clear the check boxes to the left of every other expression and every metric on the page. Only the check box next to the expression to use for the alarm should be selected. The expression that you choose for the alarm must produce a single time series and show only one line on the graph. Then choose Select metric.

    The Specify metric and conditions page appears, showing a graph and other information about the math expression that you have selected.

  11. For Whenever expression is, specify whether the expression must be greater than, less than, or equal to the threshold. Under than..., specify the threshold value.

  12. Choose Additional configuration. For Datapoints to alarm, specify how many evaluation periods (data points) must be in the ALARM state to trigger the alarm. If the two values here match, you create an alarm that goes to ALARM state if that many consecutive periods are breaching.

    To create an M out of N alarm, specify a lower number for the first value than you specify for the second value. For more information, see Evaluating an alarm.

  13. For Missing data treatment, choose how to have the alarm behave when some data points are missing. For more information, see Configuring how CloudWatch alarms treat missing data.

  14. Choose Next.

  15. Under Notification, select an SNS topic to notify when the alarm is in ALARM state, OK state, or INSUFFICIENT_DATA state.

    To have the alarm send multiple notifications for the same alarm state or for different alarm states, choose Add notification.

    To have the alarm not send notifications, choose Remove.

  16. To have the alarm perform Auto Scaling, EC2, Lambda, or Systems Manager actions, choose the appropriate button and choose the alarm state and action to perform. If you choose a Lambda function as an alarm action, you specify the function name or ARN, and you can optionally choose a specific version of the function.

    Alarms can perform Systems Manager actions only when they go into ALARM state. For more information about Systems Manager actions, see see Configuring CloudWatch to create OpsItems from alarms and Incident creation.

    Note

    To create an alarm that performs an SSM Incident Manager action, you must have certain permissions. For more information, see Identity-based policy examples for AWS Systems Manager Incident Manager.

  17. When finished, choose Next.

  18. Enter a name and description for the alarm. Then choose Next.

    The name must contain only UTF-8 characters, and can't contain ASCII control characters. The description can include markdown formatting, which is displayed only in the alarm Details tab in the CloudWatch console. The markdown can be useful to add links to runbooks or other internal resources.

  19. Under Preview and create, confirm that the information and conditions are what you want, then choose Create alarm.

You can also add alarms to a dashboard. For more information, see Add or remove an alarm widget from a CloudWatch dashboard .