Chapter 1 of 5 · AWS SOA-C03
Monitoring and Optimization
CloudWatch metrics, alarms and logs, event driven remediation, availability checks and performance tuning.
- 6topics
- 27 minfast track
- 1diagrams and exhibits
- 22%of the exam
Topics in this chapter
Take them in order, or jump to the one you need.
- 1CloudWatch Metrics and AlarmsLearn how CloudWatch metrics, the agent, alarms, composite alarms and missing data settings work, and how to build alarms for the…5 min
- 2CloudWatch Logs and FiltersCollect logs with the CloudWatch agent, turn patterns into metrics with metric filters, stream logs with subscription filters and…4 min
- 3EventBridge, SNS and Automated RemediationUse Amazon EventBridge rules, SNS topics, alarm actions and Systems Manager Automation to detect problems and fix them…Diagram4 min
- 4Availability and Health MonitoringMonitor availability with EC2 status checks, load balancer metrics, Route 53 health checks, Synthetics, X-Ray and AWS Health to…5 min
- 5Compute Performance OptimizationRight-size EC2 with Compute Optimizer, choose instance families, understand burstable credits and placement groups, and tune…4 min
- 6Storage and Database PerformancePick the right EBS volume type, tune EFS and S3, and diagnose RDS and DynamoDB bottlenecks with Performance Insights, replicas…5 min
About this chapter
What this chapter covers
This chapter is about seeing what your AWS workload is doing, reacting when something goes wrong, and making it run better. It follows the first domain of the AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer Associate (SOA-C03) outline.
Three ideas run through it. Collect data with metrics and logs, act on it with alarms, events and runbooks, and tune compute, storage and databases using what the data shows.
The chapter has three outline topics, and they are spread across six pages because each one is broad.
How the topics fit together
Monitoring data feeds alarms and events, and those feed remediation and tuning.
- Metrics and alarms tell you when a number crosses a line.
- Logs and filters turn text into metrics and searchable data.
- EventBridge, SNS and Automation notify people or fix problems without manual work.
- Availability monitoring shows whether users can reach the service and where it fails.
- Performance pages show how to read the symptoms and pick the right fix.
In scenario questions, first decide whether the problem is detecting, notifying, fixing or tuning, because each has a different service.
How to use these pages
Each topic page has the same shape, so you can skim for what you need.
- What it is: the idea in plain words.
- How it works: the mechanism, with diagrams and example commands.
- What to remember for the exam: the facts to memorise.
- Common mistakes: the classic traps.
- Check yourself: three questions to test your understanding.
If you have an AWS account, create a small alarm and a metric filter yourself, because seeing the states change makes the settings easier to remember.
Ready for more practice?
The full AWS SOA-C03 question bank has 850 questions, with timed practice exams and an explanation for every answer.
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