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Feature Request: Publish Fleet Manager performance counters to CloudWatch
Can we get Fleet Manager performance counters to publish to CloudWatch by default as a feature enhancement?
Currently, customers need to run both SSM and CloudWatch agents to supported instances in order to gain the best of both worlds for observability and host management. Fleet Manager performance counters are per-minute metrics and offer almost real-time insight into the host counters covering metrics including Disk I/O and Memory Utilisation. Disk I/O and Memory utilisation are missing metrics from CloudWatch by default. To obtain them, we must install the CW agent.
Trusted Advisor utilises visible CloudWatch metrics and historical usage data (collected at 5-minute intervals by default; 1-minute intervals with enhanced monitoring) to determine recommendations for right-sizing. Those recommendations are read by Compute Optimizer and Cost Optimization Hub. Without memory and disk I/O utilisation data, Trusted Advisor can only recommend and quantify average cost savings by CPU utilisation alone. This skews trust in recommendations.
The solution involves installing the CW agent alongside the SSM Agent. Two agents to manage and update and each agent consumes valuable instance resources to run (leading to increased instance sizes to compensate).
Why not either:
- collapse the CW agent into the SSM Agent (refactor SSM Agent) or
- just get Fleet Manager to publish the performance counters into CW (no agent refactor / bloating)
It seems a lot of overhead for customers to manage to solve a problem that contains the data elsewhere.
This would be a very much appreciated enhancement.
- Topics
- Management & Governance
- Language
- English
asked 22 days ago54 views
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Your feature request highlights an important gap in AWS's observability and management tooling. You're correct that Fleet Manager provides near real-time performance counters including memory and disk I/O metrics that aren't available in CloudWatch by default, and that customers currently need to run both the SSM Agent and CloudWatch agent to get comprehensive visibility.
The CloudWatch agent does enable collection of Windows Performance Monitor counters and Linux system metrics including memory utilization, disk I/O, and other performance data that aren't captured by default CloudWatch metrics. When installed on Windows Server instances, it collects metrics from Performance Monitor counters, and on Linux instances it gathers CPU, memory, disk, network, and process metrics. Fleet Manager separately provides real-time performance data through its interface, allowing you to view performance counters like CPU, memory, disk utilization, and network traffic for troubleshooting purposes.
Your observation about the impact on right-sizing recommendations is particularly insightful. Without memory and disk I/O data in CloudWatch, services like Trusted Advisor, Compute Optimizer, and Cost Optimization Hub can only make recommendations based on CPU utilization, which as you note, limits the accuracy and trustworthiness of those recommendations.
The overhead of managing two separate agents—each consuming instance resources and requiring updates—is a valid concern, especially when the performance data already exists within Fleet Manager. Your suggestions to either consolidate the CloudWatch agent functionality into the SSM Agent or enable Fleet Manager to publish its performance counters directly to CloudWatch would indeed streamline operations and reduce resource consumption.
For submitting this feature request formally, I'd recommend adding your detailed feedback through the AWS Support Center at https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/ where it can be properly tracked and considered by the AWS service teams. You might also consider reviewing your AWS Support plan options if you need faster engagement on feature requests and architectural guidance.
Sources
AWS Systems Manager | Fleet Manager | Gain Operational Insights & Take Action
Create the CloudWatch agent configuration file with the wizard - Amazon CloudWatch
Metrics collected by the CloudWatch agent - Amazon CloudWatch
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