Exporting application metrics to Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon ECS on Fargate supports exporting your custom application metrics to Amazon CloudWatch as custom metrics. This is done by adding the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry sidecar container to your task definition. The Amazon ECS console simplifies this process by adding the Use metric collection option when creating a new task definition. For more information, see Creating a task definition using the console.

The application metrics are exported to CloudWatch Logs with log group name /aws/ecs/application/metrics and the metrics can be viewed in the ECS/AWSOTel/Application namespace. Your application must be instrumented with the OpenTelemetry SDK. For more information, see Introduction to AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry in the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry documentation.

Considerations

The following should be considered when using the Amazon ECS on Fargate integration with AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry to send application metrics to Amazon CloudWatch.

• This integration only sends your custom application metrics to CloudWatch. If you want task-level metrics, you can turn on Container Insights in the Amazon ECS cluster configuration. For more information, see Monitor Amazon ECS containers using Container Insights.

• The AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry integration is supported for Amazon ECS workloads hosted on Fargate and Amazon ECS workloads hosted on Amazon EC2 instances. External instances aren't currently supported.

• CloudWatch supports a maximum of 30 dimensions per metric. By default, Amazon ECS defaults to including the TaskARN, ClusterARN, LaunchType, TaskDefinitionFamily, and TaskDefinitionRevision dimensions to the metrics. The remaining 25 dimensions can be defined by your application. If more than 30 dimensions are configured, CloudWatch can't display them. When this occurs, the application metrics will appear in the ECS/AWSOTel/Application CloudWatch metric namespace but without any dimensions. You can instrument your application to add additional dimensions. For more information, see Using CloudWatch metrics with AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry in the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry documentation.

Required IAM permissions for AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry integration with Amazon CloudWatch

The Amazon ECS integration with AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry requires that you create a task IAM role and specify the role in your task definition. We recommend that the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry sidecar also be configured to route container logs to CloudWatch Logs which requires a task execution IAM role be created and specified in your task definition as well. The Amazon ECS console takes care of the task execution IAM role on your behalf, but the task IAM role must be created manually and added to your task definition. For more information about the task execution IAM role, see Amazon ECS task execution IAM role.

Important

If you're also collecting application trace data using the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry integration, ensure your task IAM role also contains the permissions necessary for that integration. For more information, see Identify Amazon ECS optimization opportunities using application trace data.

If your application requires any additional permissions, you should add them to this policy. Each task definition may only specify one task IAM role. For example, if you are using a custom configuration file stored in Systems Manager, you should add the ssm:GetParameters permission to this IAM policy.

To create the service role for Elastic Container Service (IAM console)

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane of the IAM console, choose Roles, and then choose Create role.

3. For Trusted entity type, choose AWS service.

4. For Service or use case, choose Elastic Container Service, and then choose the Elastic Container Service Task use case.

5. Choose Next.

6. In the Add permissions section, search for AWSDistroOpenTelemetryPolicyForXray, then select the policy.

7. (Optional) Set a permissions boundary. This is an advanced feature that is available for service roles, but not service-linked roles.

   1. Open the Set permissions boundary section, and then choose Use a permissions boundary to control the maximum role permissions.

      IAM includes a list of the AWS managed and customer-managed policies in your account.

   2. Select the policy to use for the permissions boundary.

8. Choose Next.

9. Enter a role name or a role name suffix to help you identify the purpose of the role.

   Important

   When you name a role, note the following:

   • Role names must be unique within your AWS account, and can't be made unique by case.

     For example, don't create roles named both PRODROLE and prodrole. When a role name is used in a policy or as part of an ARN, the role name is case sensitive, however when a role name appears to customers in the console, such as during the sign-in process, the role name is case insensitive.

   • You can't edit the name of the role after it's created because other entities might reference the role.

10. (Optional) For Description, enter a description for the role.

11. (Optional) To edit the use cases and permissions for the role, in the Step 1: Select trusted entities or Step 2: Add permissions sections, choose Edit.

12. (Optional) To help identify, organize, or search for the role, add tags as key-value pairs. For more information about using tags in IAM, see Tagging IAM resources in the IAM User Guide.

13. Review the role, and then choose Create role.

Specifying the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry sidecar in your task definition

The Amazon ECS console simplifies the experience of creating the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry sidecar container by using the Use metric collection option. For more information, see Creating a task definition using the console.

If you're not using the Amazon ECS console, you can add the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry sidecar container to your task definition manually. The following task definition example shows the container definition for adding the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry sidecar for Amazon CloudWatch integration.

{
	"family": "otel-using-cloudwatch",
	"taskRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/AmazonECS_OpenTelemetryCloudWatchRole",
	"executionRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/ecsTaskExecutionRole",
	"containerDefinitions": [
	   {
			"name": "aws-otel-emitter",
			"image": "application-image",
			"logConfiguration": {
				"logDriver": "awslogs",
				"options": {
					"awslogs-create-group": "true",
					"awslogs-group": "/ecs/aws-otel-emitter",
					"awslogs-region": "us-east-1",
					"awslogs-stream-prefix": "ecs"
				}
			},
			"dependsOn": [{
				"containerName": "aws-otel-collector",
				"condition": "START"
			}]
		},
		{
			"name": "aws-otel-collector",
			"image": "public.ecr.aws/aws-observability/aws-otel-collector:v0.30.0",
			"essential": true,
			"command": [
				"--config=/etc/ecs/ecs-cloudwatch.yaml"
			],
			"logConfiguration": {
				"logDriver": "awslogs",
				"options": {
					"awslogs-create-group": "True",
					"awslogs-group": "/ecs/ecs-aws-otel-sidecar-collector",
					"awslogs-region": "us-east-1",
					"awslogs-stream-prefix": "ecs"
				}
			}
		}
	],
	"networkMode": "awsvpc",
	"requiresCompatibilities": [
		"FARGATE"
	],
	"cpu": "1024",
	"memory": "3072"
}