Overview

The AWS EC2 Event Monitor watches your AWS instances, elastic IPs, snapshots, and security groups. It has options to alert you when the state of any instance changes, allowing you to have a record of events such as when a new instance is launched or an existing one is terminated. It can also watch your elastic IPs, alerting you about new and deleted IPs and/or the assignment or unassignment of IPs. For snapshots, it can alert you about new or deleted snapshots. It can also alert based on the total number of snapshots or their combined size. Lastly, it can alert if changes are made to any of your security groups.

Use Cases

• Keeping track of the state of your Amazon AWS EC2 instances
• Monitoring creation and/or deletion of IPs
• Monitoring creation and/or deletion of snapshots

Monitoring Options

This event monitor provides the following options:

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if Amazon Web Services is unreachable

Use this option to alert you if the event monitor is unable to connect to Amazon AWS. Reasons for a failure to connect include invalid security tokens and loss of external network access.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if the state of any instance changes

Use this option to get alerts about instances whose state has changed. For example, it can alert you if an instance goes from "running" to "stopped" or any other state transition.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if any instance has failed a status check

Amazon AWS runs standard status checks on all your running instances to make sure they are healthy. Use this option to get alerts about any instances that have failed one or more status checks.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if a new instance is launched

FrameFlow can detect when a new instance is launched. It's a great way to keep track of instance management and provide an audit trail for future analysis.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if an instance is deleted

It's normal that you'll remove unused instances from time to time, but occasionally it happens by accident. If no one notices for a long time, the result could be bad. Use this option to get alerts when an instance is deleted. It's another great way to keep an audit trail of your instance management activities.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if any Elastic IP is added

Amazon charges fees for unassigned elastic IP addresses. Use this option to get alerts whenever new elastic IPs have been added to your AWS configuration.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if any Elastic IP is removed

Use this option to get alerts whenever any elastic IP is removed from your Amazon AWS configuration.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if any Elastic IP is assigned

This option will alert you whenever any elastic IP is assigned to an instance. It's a great way to keep an audit trail of changes to your Amazon AWS configuration.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if any Elastic IP is unassigned

Unassigned elastic IPs can incur costs on your next AWS bill. Use this option to get alerts when any elastic IP is unassigned from an instance. It's also another great option to keep an audit trail for your AWS configuration.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if new snapshots are created

Snapshots are an excellent tool for recovery and configuration management of your AWS instances, but they take up space which adds to your ongoing costs. Use this option to get alerts when new snapshots are created.

Alert with [Info/Warning/Error/Critical] if snapshots are deleted

Use this option to get alerts whenever any snapshot is deleted.

Alert if there are more than a specified number of snapshots

Snapshots take up space, and that adds to your monthly bill. Use this option to get alerts when your total number of snapshots exceeds the thresholds that you define.

Alert if the total size of all snapshots is greater than a specified size

Save on your monthly AWS costs by making sure the total size of all your snapshots does not grow too large. Use this option to specify the thresholds for the different alert levels.

Alert with Warning/Error/Critical if security groups are modified

Security groups control access to your instances and are the most fundamental part of your AWS security configuration. Use this option to get alerts when any of your security groups have changed.

Authentication and Security

The account that is used to authenticate must have read permission for Amazon AWS EC2 API.

Protocols

Data Points

This event monitor generates the following data points:

Data Point	Description
Number of Running Instances	The number of instances running at the time of the event monitor run.
Number of Stopped Instances	The number of instances that are stopped.
Total Number of Instances	The total number of instances found when the event monitor runs.

Sample Output

Tutorial

To view the tutorial for this event monitor, click here.