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Operations Tools

Table of Contents

  1. Overview

  2. Prerequisites

  3. AWS Operations Tools

    • 3.1 CloudWatch Dashboard

    • 3.2 CloudWatch Explorer

    • 3.3 Incident Manager

    • 3.4 OpsCenter

  4. Best Practices

  5. Summary

1. Overview

AWS Systems Manager Operations Tools help you monitor, visualize, investigate, and resolve operational issues across your AWS environment with centralized dashboards, incident workflows, and insights.

2. Prerequisites

  • AWS Account with IAM permissions for CloudWatch, Systems Manager, and Incident Manager.

  • Resources (EC2, Lambda, containers, etc.) emitting metrics and logs to CloudWatch.

  • AWS CLI or AWS Console access.

3. AWS Operations Tools

3.1 CloudWatch Dashboard

Purpose:
Create customizable dashboards to visualize metrics, logs, alarms, and other data in one view.

Key Features:

  • Visualize key metrics from multiple AWS resources.

  • Add widgets like line charts, bar charts, text, alarms, and logs.

  • Share dashboards across teams.

Practical Tutorial:

Step 1: Create a Dashboard

  • AWS Console → CloudWatch → Dashboards → Create dashboard.

  • Enter dashboard name.

Step 2: Add Widgets

  • Choose widget type (Line, Stacked area, Number, Text, etc.).

  • Select metrics or logs from namespaces like EC2, Lambda, RDS.

  • Configure widget display options.

Step 3: Save and Share

  • Save dashboard and share URL with team or embed in monitoring tools.

3.2 CloudWatch Explorer

Purpose:
Interactive exploration and analysis of logs and metrics at scale.

Key Features:

  • Query logs across multiple log groups using CloudWatch Logs Insights.

  • Filter, search, and visualize log data.

  • Correlate metrics and logs for troubleshooting.

Practical Tutorial:

Step 1: Open CloudWatch Logs Insights

  • AWS Console → CloudWatch → Logs Insights.

Step 2: Select Log Groups

  • Select one or more log groups (e.g., /aws/lambda/myFunction, /var/log/messages).

Step 3: Write and Run Queries

Example query to count errors in logs:

fields @timestamp, @message
| filter @message like /error/i
| sort @timestamp desc
| limit 20

Step 4: Visualize Results

  • Use built-in charting to view log trends over time.

3.3 Incident Manager

Purpose:
Automate incident response and resolution workflows.

Key Features:

  • Define incident templates and response plans.

  • Automatically notify responders via SMS, email, Slack, or PagerDuty.

  • Track incident lifecycle and generate post-incident reports.

Practical Tutorial:

Step 1: Set up Incident Manager

  • AWS Console → Systems Manager → Incident Manager → Get started.

Step 2: Create Response Plan

  • Define name, severity, and notification targets.

  • Add responders with contact methods.

Step 3: Create Incident Templates

  • Link templates to response plans to streamline incident creation.

Step 4: Manually or automatically create incidents

  • Integrate with CloudWatch alarms or create manually.

Step 5: Manage Incidents

  • Use the console or mobile app to track progress, add notes, and resolve incidents.

3.4 OpsCenter

Purpose:
Centralize operational issues and events for easier investigation and resolution.

Key Features:

  • Collect operational work items called OpsItems.

  • Correlate related issues and link to runbooks or automation documents.

  • Integrate with ServiceNow, Jira, or Slack for ticketing.

Practical Tutorial:

Step 1: Open OpsCenter

  • AWS Console → Systems Manager → OpsCenter.

Step 2: View OpsItems

  • Automatically created by AWS services (CloudWatch, Config, etc.) or manually created.

Step 3: Investigate OpsItems

  • Review metadata, related resources, and recent activity.

Step 4: Take Action

  • Link runbooks or automation documents to OpsItems for resolution.

  • Add comments or assign ownership.

4. Best Practices

  • Build custom CloudWatch Dashboards for your application and infrastructure KPIs.

  • Use CloudWatch Logs Insights queries for deep log analysis.

  • Automate incident response with Incident Manager to reduce MTTR (Mean Time To Resolve).

  • Use OpsCenter as a single pane of glass for all operational issues.

  • Integrate Incident Manager and OpsCenter with third-party ITSM tools for seamless workflows.

5. Summary Table

Tool Purpose Key Use Case
CloudWatch Dashboard Visualize key metrics and logs Central monitoring of application/infrastructure health
CloudWatch Explorer Query and analyze logs Deep log troubleshooting and insights
Incident Manager Automate incident response Coordinate multi-responder incident handling
OpsCenter Centralized ops issue management Aggregate and resolve operational issues