Documentation forSolarWinds Observability

Add an AWS cloud account

To monitor your AWS-managed host and associated AWS services with SolarWinds Observability, integrate SolarWinds Observability with your AWS account.

Integrate SolarWinds Observability with AWS manually

  1. In a separate tab, sign in to the Amazon AWS website with the AWS account you wish to integrate with SolarWinds Observability.

  2. Return to the SolarWinds Observability tab.

  3. In SolarWinds Observability, click Add Data at the top.

  4. In the Add Data dialog, click AWS.

  5. In the Basic Settings screen of the Add AWS Cloud Account dialog, click Click here to integrate with your AWS account with a new IAM Role and IAM Policy. The wizard will update accordingly.

  6. Type a Display name to represent the integration with your AWS account.

  7. Enter a unique name in the Metrics tag field. The metrics tag will be added to all measurements ingested from the AWS cloud services on this AWS account.

    The Metrics tag can be used to distinguish AWS accounts when creating a chart or filtering data in a dashboard.

  8. Click Next.

  9. The Create a new AWS IAM Policy screen will populate within SolarWinds Observability.

  10. Proceed through the steps on the screen to set up your IAM policy and click Next. Proceed through the steps on the screen to set up your IAM role and click Next.

  11. In the Summary screen of the SolarWinds Observability Add AWS Cloud Account dialog, verify the AWS integration settings. Click Submit.

Integrate SolarWinds Observability with AWS using CloudFormation

  1. In a separate tab, sign in to the Amazon AWS website with the AWS account you wish to integrate with SolarWinds Observability.

  2. Return to the SolarWinds Observability tab.

  3. In SolarWinds Observability, click Add Data at the top.

  4. In the Add Data dialog, click AWS.

  5. In the Basic Settings screen of the Add AWS Cloud Account dialog, type a Display name to represent the integration with your AWS account.

  6. Enter a unique name in the Metrics tag field. The metrics tag will be added to all measurements ingested from the AWS cloud services on this AWS account.

    The Metrics tag can be used to distinguish AWS accounts when creating a chart or filtering data in a dashboard.

  7. Select the Data acquisition method. Click Set Up Using CloudFormation.

  8. If you are using polling, see Polling below. If you are using streaming, see Streaming below.

    • Pulls AWS metrics data into SolarWinds Observability at regular intervals.

      1. A new tab in your browser opens and loads the AWS CloudFormation Quick create stack page. In the AWS tab, complete all sections of the CloudFormation quick create stack form for the SolarWinds AWS Integration stack.

        In the Parameters pane, use the following information:

        • The SolarWinds AWS Account ID will be filled in the AccountID field automatically.

          If necessary, you can find the SolarWinds AWS Account ID in the Role ARN screen of the Add Cloud Account dialog. Return to SolarWinds Observability browser tab and click to copy the AWS Account ID to the clipboard.

        • After the IAM Role is created, return to the SolarWinds Observability browser tab and enter the new IAM Role's ARN in the Role ARN field to complete the integration.

          You can find the ARN in the IAM Role’s Summary or in the AwsIntegrationArn value in the SolarWinds AWS Integration stack’s outputs tab.

        Enter the AWS External ID in the ExternalID field.

        To find the AWS External ID, return to the SolarWinds Observability browser tab. In the Add AWS Cloud Account dialog, click to copy the AWS External ID to the clipboard.

      2. Return to the SolarWinds Observability browser tab and click Next.

      3. In the Regions screen, select the AWS service regions you want to monitor. To monitor AWS cloud hosts, select Elastic Compute Cloud. Click Next.

      4. In the Services screen, select the AWS services you want to monitor. Click Next.

    • Continuously updates AWS metrics data in SolarWinds Observability, providing high-fidelity metrics with near real-time delivery. See Benefits of metrics streaming for more information.

      1. A new tab in your browser opens and loads the AWS CloudFormation Quick create stack page. In the AWS tab, complete all sections of the CloudFormation quick create stack form for the SolarWinds AWS Integration stack.

        In the Parameters pane, use the following information:

        • The SolarWinds AWS Account ID will be filled in the AccountID field automatically.

          If necessary, you can find the SolarWinds AWS Account ID in the Role ARN screen of the Add Cloud Account dialog. Return to SolarWinds Observability browser tab and click to copy the AWS Account ID to the clipboard.

        • After the IAM Role is created, return to the SolarWinds Observability browser tab and enter the new IAM Role's ARN in the Role ARN field to complete the integration.

          You can find the ARN in the IAM Role’s Summary or in the AwsIntegrationArn value in the SolarWinds AWS Integration stack’s outputs tab.

        Enter the AWS External ID in the ExternalID field.

        To find the AWS External ID, return to the SolarWinds Observability browser tab. In the Add AWS Cloud Account dialog, click to copy the AWS External ID to the clipboard.

      2. Return to the SolarWinds Observability browser tab and click Next.

        To stream data from AWS, SolarWinds Observability creates an Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream, an S3 bucket, and a CloudWatch Metric Stream. SolarWinds Observability automatically opens a new tab with the AWS CloudFormation stack.

        To minimize the cost of the backup S3 bucket, make sure S3 Versioning is disabled when creating the CloudFormation stack for the streaming integration. For more information, see How S3 Versioning works.

      3. In Stack name, enter the name of your new stack, and in the Parameters pane, use the following information:

        • APIToken: Enter your SolarWinds Observability API token to authenticate the Amazon metric streams.

          You can find the API token in the Create Metric Stream screen of the Add AWS Cloud Account dialog. Return to SolarWinds Observability browser tab, and under Ingestion Token, select either Generate New Token or Use Existing Token and select an existing token from the drop-down. Click to copy the API Token to the clipboard.

        • IAMRoleName: Enter a unique IAM Role Name.

          You must enter a unique IAM Role Name every time you create a stack, otherwise an error is displayed and you will not be able to complete the stack creation process.

      4. Click Create stack.

      5. (Optional) By default, the Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream, S3 bucket, and metric stream are created using the same region as what was used when accessing CloudFormation.

        To use additional regions, create AWS CloudFormation stacks in the desired regions:

        1. Open the AWS CloudFormation Stacks page in a new browser tab. Click the region drop-down in the upper-right of the page, and select a region for the new CloudFormation stack.

        2. Click Create stack > With new resources (standard).

        3. On the Create stack page, under Prepare template, select Template is ready.

        4. Under Template source, select Amazon S3 URL, and enter the URL in the Amazon S3 URL field. Click Next.

          You can find the Amazon S3 URL in the Create Metric Stream screen of the Add AWS Cloud Account dialog. Return to SolarWinds Observability browser tab and click to copy the Amazon S3 URL to the clipboard.

        5. Repeat steps a. and b.

        6. Repeat steps i. through v. for every region you wish to use for your multi-region metrics streaming configuration.

      6. Return to SolarWinds Observability browser tab and in the Create Metric Stream screen of the Add Cloud Account dialog, click Next.

  9. In the Summary screen of the SolarWinds Observability Add AWS Cloud Account dialog, verify the AWS integration settings. Click Submit.

To view data collected for the newly configured entity in the Entity Explorer, click the name of the Host in the confirmation dialog in the lower-left corner. It may take a few seconds for data to appear for the newly created entity. See Entity Explorer for details.

See Entities in SolarWinds Observability for an overview of Host entities and how they work in SolarWinds Observability.

See Add logs from AWS for details on setting up AWS logs for SolarWinds Observability.

Update an existing Firehose delivery stream and S3 bucket configurations

Follow the instructions below to update the Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose delivery stream and S3 bucket configurations that were created as part of that Amazon CloudWatch Metric Stream integration.

The instructions are valid for Amazon CloudWatchMetric Stream integrations created before April 10, 2024.

  1. Log in to the AWS Console with your AWS account, and open the Amazon Data Firehose page.

  2. Type SWOStreaming-DeliveryStream in the search bar to locate all the Firehose streams.

  3. Click the stream you want to update, and click the Configuration tab above Firehose stream metrics.

  4. Under Destination settings, click Edit.

  5. Under Content encoding, select GZIP.

  6. Click Buffer hints to expand the section, and change the Buffer size value to 1.

  7. Click Save changes.

  8. Scroll down to Backup settings and click Edit.

  9. Under S3 backup bucket, click Browse and click on the S3 bucket URL to open the S3 bucket configuration.

  10. Click the Management tab, and under Lifecycle rules, click Create lifecycle rule.

  11. In the Lifecycle rule name, type the rule name. For example, CleanupRule30Days.

  12. Under Prefix, type /firehose.

  13. Under Lifecycle rule actions, select Expire current versions of objects.

  14. Under Expire current versions of objects, type 30 in the Days after object creation field.

  15. Click Save changes.

Update an existing CloudFormation stack with the latest template

When the CloudFormation template is updated (for example, when policy permissions change), you must update your existing CloudFormation stack to use the latest template.

  1. Log in to the AWS Console with your AWS account, and open the CloudFormation Stacks page.

  2. Select the stack you want to update, and click Update.

  3. On the Update stack page, under Prerequisite - Prepare template, select Replace current template. Under Specify template - Template source, select Amazon S3 URL, and in the Amazon S3 URL field, enter the below template URL, and click Next.

    https://swi-im-templates.s3.amazonaws.com/solarwinds-observability-aws-integration.template

  4. Click Next on the Specify stack details page and Configure stack options page to proceed to the Review page. Under Changeset review, verify your updates, and click Submit.

For details on updating CloudFormation stacks, see Updating stacks directly in Amazon documentation.