Monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch - AWS Direct Connect

Monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch

You can monitor physical AWS Direct Connect connections, and virtual interfaces, using CloudWatch. CloudWatch collects raw data from Direct Connect, and processes it into readable metrics. By default, CloudWatch provides Direct Connect metric data in 5-minute intervals.

For detailed information about CloudWatch, see the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide. You can also monitor your services CloudWatch to see what ones are using resources. For more information, see AWS Services That Publish CloudWatch Metrics.

AWS Direct Connect metrics and dimensions

Metrics are available for AWS Direct Connect physical connections, and virtual interfaces.

AWS Direct Connect Connection metrics

The following metrics are available from Direct Connect dedicated connections.

Metric Description

ConnectionState

The state of the connection.1 indicates up and 0 indicates down.

This metric is available for dedicated and hosted connections.

Note

This metric is also available in hosted virtual interface owner accounts in addition to connection owner accounts.

Units: Boolean

ConnectionBpsEgress

The bitrate for outbound data from the AWS side of the connection.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default, 1 minute minimum). You can change the default aggregate.

This metric might be unavailable for a new connection, or when a device reboots. The metric starts when the connection is used to send or receive traffic.

Units: Bits per second

ConnectionBpsIngress

The bitrate for inbound data to the AWS side of the connection.

This metric might be unavailable for a new connection, or when a device reboots. The metric starts when the connection is used to send or receive traffic.

Units: Bits per second

ConnectionPpsEgress

The packet rate for outbound data from the AWS side of the connection.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default, 1 minute minimum). You can change the default aggregate.

This metric might be unavailable for a new connection, or when a device reboots. The metric starts when the connection is used to send or receive traffic.

Units: Packets per second

ConnectionPpsIngress

The packet rate for inbound data to the AWS side of the connection.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default, 1 minute minimum). You can change the default aggregate.

This metric might be unavailable for a new connection, or when a device reboots. The metric starts when the connection is used to send or receive traffic.

Units: Packets per second

ConnectionCRCErrorCount

This count is no longer in use. Use ConnectionErrorCount instead.

ConnectionErrorCount

The total error count for all types of MAC level errors on the AWS device. The total includes cyclic redundancy check (CRC) errors.

This metric is the error count that occurred since the last reported datapoint. When there are errors on the interface, the metric reports non-zero values. To get the total count of all errors for the selected interval in CloudWatch, for example, 5 minutes, apply the"sum" statistic. For more information about getting the sum statistic, see Getting Statistics for a Metric in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

The metric value is set to 0 when the errors on the interface stop.

Note

This metric replaces ConnectionCRCErrorCount, which is no longer in use.

Units: Count

ConnectionLightLevelTx

Indicates the health of the fiber connection for outbound (egress) traffic from the AWS side of the connection.

There are two dimensions for this metric. For more information, see AWS Direct Connect available dimensions.

Units: dBm

ConnectionLightLevelRx

Indicates the health of the fiber connection for inbound (ingress) traffic to the AWS side of the connection.

There are two dimensions for this metric. For more information, see AWS Direct Connect available dimensions.

Units: dBm

ConnectionEncryptionState

Indicates the connection encryption status. 1 indicates the connection encryption is up, and 0 indicates the connection encryption is down. When this metric is applied to a LAG, 1 indicates that all connections in the LAG have encryption up. 0 indicates at least one LAG connection encryption is down.

AWS Direct Connect virtual interface metrics

The following metrics are available from AWS Direct Connect virtual interfaces.

Metric Description

VirtualInterfaceBpsEgress

The bitrate for outbound data from the AWS side of the virtual interface.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default).

Units: Bits per second

VirtualInterfaceBpsIngress

The bitrate for inbound data to the AWS side of the virtual interface.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default).

Units: Bits per second

VirtualInterfacePpsEgress

The packet rate for outbound data from the AWS side of the virtual interface.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default).

Units: Packets per second

VirtualInterfacePpsIngress

The packet rate for inbound data to the AWS side of the virtual interface.

The number reported is the aggregate (average) over the specified time period (5 minutes by default).

Units: Packets per second

AWS Direct Connect available dimensions

You can filter the AWS Direct Connect data using the following dimensions.

Dimension Description

ConnectionId

This dimension is available on the metrics for Direct Connect connection, and virtual interface. This dimension filters the data by the connection.

OpticalLaneNumber This dimension filters the ConnectionLightLevelTx data and the ConnectionLightLevelRx data, and filters the data by the optical lane number of the Direct Connect connection.
VirtualInterfaceId This dimension is available on the metrics for Direct Connect virtual interface, and filters the data by the virtual interface.

Viewing AWS Direct Connect CloudWatch metrics

AWS Direct Connect sends the following metrics about your Direct Connect connections. Amazon CloudWatch then aggregates these data points to 1-minute or 5-minute intervals. By default, Direct Connect metric data is written to CloudWatch at 5-minute intervals.

Note

If you set a 1-minute interval, Direct Connect will make a best effort to write the metrics to CloudWatch using this interval, but it can't always be guaranteed.

You can use the following procedures to view the metrics for Direct Connect connections.

To view metrics using the CloudWatch console

Metrics are grouped first by the service namespace, and then by the various dimension combinations within each namespace. For more information about using Amazon CloudWatch to view Direct Connect metrics, including adding math functions or prebuilt queries, see Using Amazon CloudWatch metrics in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

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

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics, and then choose All metrics.

  3. In the Metrics section, choose DX.

  4. Choose a ConnectionId or Metric name, and then choose any of the following to further define the metric:

    • Add to search — Adds this metric to your search results.

    • Search for this only — Searches only for this metric.

    • Remove from graph — Removes this metric from the graph.

    • Graph this metric only — Graphs only this metric.

    • Graph all search results — Graphs all metrics.

    • Graph with SQL query — Opens Metric Insights -query builder, allowing you to choose what you want to graph by creating an SQL query. For more information on using Metric Insights, see Query your metrics with CloudWatch Metrics Insights in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

To view metrics using the AWS Direct Connect console
  1. Open the AWS Direct Connect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/v2/home.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Connections.

  3. Select your connection.

  4. Choose the Monitoring tab to display the metrics for your connection.

To view metrics using the AWS CLI

At a command prompt, use the following command.

aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace "AWS/DX"

Creating CloudWatch alarms to monitor AWS Direct Connect connections

You can create a CloudWatch alarm that sends an Amazon SNS message when the alarm changes state. An alarm watches a single metric over a time period that you specify. It sends a notification to an Amazon SNS topic based on the value of the metric relative to a given threshold over a number of time periods.

For example, you can create an alarm that monitors the state of an AWS Direct Connect connection. It sends a notification when the connection state is down for five consecutive 1-minute periods. For details on what to know for creating an alarm and for more information on creating an alarm, see Using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

To create a CloudWatch alarm.
  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 choose DX .

  5. Choose the Connection Metrics metric.

  6. Select the AWS Direct Connect connection, and then choose the Select metric metric.

  7. On the Specify metric and conditions page, configure the parameters for the alarm. For more specifying metrics and conditions, see Using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

  8. Choose Next.

  9. Configure the alarm actions on the Configure actions page. For more information on configuring alarm actions, see Alarm actions in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

  10. Choose Next.

  11. On the Add name and description page, enter a Name and an optional Alarm description to describe this alarm, and then choose Next.

  12. Verify the proposed alarm on the Preview and create page.

  13. If needed choose Edit to change any information, and then choose Create alarm.

    The Alarms page displays a new row with information about the new alarm. The Actions status displays Actions enabled, indicating that the alarm is active.