How Do I Visualize AWS DynamoDB Metrics With Grafana?

Introduction

Visualizing AWS DynamoDB metrics with Grafana involves setting up a DynamoDB table and configuring Grafana to use AWS CloudWatch to retrieve and display the metrics. This process allows you to monitor the performance and health of your DynamoDB tables effectively. The following guide will walk you through the necessary steps to achieve this setup.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Define the DynamoDB Table: Start by creating a DynamoDB table to store your data. This table acts as the primary source of data that you will monitor.

2. Set up CloudWatch Metrics: Configure AWS CloudWatch to collect and store the operational metrics of your DynamoDB table. CloudWatch serves as the intermediary that gathers and manages the metrics data.

3. Provision IAM Role and Policy: Create an IAM role and its associated policy to grant Grafana the necessary permissions to read metrics from CloudWatch. This step ensures that Grafana can access the data it needs for visualization.

4. Grafana Datasource Configuration: Finally, configure Grafana to use CloudWatch as a data source. This setup enables Grafana to pull in the metrics data from CloudWatch for visualization purposes.

Below is the complete program to implement the above steps:

import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as aws from "@pulumi/aws";

// DynamoDB Table Configuration
const example = new aws.dynamodb.Table("example", {
    name: "example-table",
    hashKey: "id",
    attributes: [{
        name: "id",
        type: "S",
    }],
    billingMode: "PAY_PER_REQUEST",
    tags: {
        Name: "example-table",
    },
});
// CloudWatch Metrics Configuration
const exampleLogGroup = new aws.cloudwatch.LogGroup("example", {name: "example-log-group"});
// IAM Role for Grafana to read CloudWatch metrics
const grafana = new aws.iam.Role("grafana", {
    name: "grafana-role",
    assumeRolePolicy: JSON.stringify({
        Version: "2012-10-17",
        Statement: [{
            Effect: "Allow",
            Principal: {
                Service: "grafana.amazonaws.com",
            },
            Action: "sts:AssumeRole",
        }],
    }),
});
// IAM Policy to grant read access to CloudWatch
const grafanaPolicy = new aws.iam.Policy("grafana_policy", {
    name: "grafana-policy",
    policy: JSON.stringify({
        Version: "2012-10-17",
        Statement: [{
            Effect: "Allow",
            Action: [
                "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
                "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
                "logs:DescribeLogGroups",
                "logs:GetLogEvents",
            ],
            Resource: "*",
        }],
    }),
});
// Attach the policy to the role
const grafanaAttach = new aws.iam.RolePolicyAttachment("grafana_attach", {
    role: grafana.name,
    policyArn: grafanaPolicy.arn,
});
export const dynamodbTableName = example.name;
export const cloudwatchLogGroupName = exampleLogGroup.name;
export const grafanaRoleArn = grafana.arn;

Key Points

• DynamoDB Table: Acts as the data source for the metrics.
• CloudWatch: Collects and stores metrics from the DynamoDB table.
• IAM Role and Policy: Grants Grafana the necessary permissions to access CloudWatch metrics.
• Grafana Configuration: Enables visualization of the metrics through its interface.

Conclusion

By following this guide, you can successfully set up a system to visualize AWS DynamoDB metrics using Grafana. This setup allows you to monitor your database’s performance and health efficiently, leveraging the powerful visualization capabilities of Grafana alongside AWS CloudWatch’s robust monitoring features.