Grafana ships with built in support for CloudWatch. You just have to add it as a data source and you will
be ready to build dashboards for you CloudWatch metrics.
## Adding the data source
1. Open the side menu by clicking the the Grafana icon in the top header.
2. In the side menu under the `Dashboards` link you should find a link named `Data Sources`.
...
...
@@ -17,16 +18,47 @@ Grafana ships with support for Cloudwatch.
> NOTE: If this link is missing in the side menu it means that your current user does not have the `Admin` role for the current organization.
3. Click the `Add new` link in the top header.
4. Select `Elasticsearch` from the dropdown.
4. Select `CloudWatch` from the dropdown.
Name | Description
------------ | -------------
Name | The data source name, important that this is the same as in Grafana v1.x if you plan to import old dashboards.
Default | Default data source means that it will be pre-selected for new panels.
Url | The http protocol, ip and port of you elasticsearch server.
Access | Proxy = access via Grafana backend, Direct = access directory from browser.
Default-Region | Used in query editor to set region (can be changed on per query basis)
Proxy access means that the Grafana backend will proxy all requests from the browser, and send them on to the Data Source. This is useful because it can eliminate CORS (Cross Origin Site Resource) issues, as well as eliminate the need to disseminate authentication details to the Data Source to the browser.
## Authentication
### IAM Roles
Currently all access to CloudWatch is done server side by the Grafana backend using the offical AWS SDK. If you grafana
server is running on AWS you can use IAM Roles and authentication will be handled automatically.
Checkout AWS docs on [IAM Roles]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/iam-roles-for-amazon-ec2.html)
### AWS credentials file
Create a file at `~/.aws/credentials`. That is the `HOME` path for user running grafana-server.
Example content:
[default]
aws_access_key_id = asdsadasdasdasd
aws_secret_access_key = dasdasdsadasdasdasdsa
region = us-west-2
### Metric Query Editor
You need to specify a namespace, metric, at least one stat, and at least one dimension.
### Cost
It's worth to mention that Amazon will charge you for CloudWatch API usage. CloudWatch costs
$0.01 per 1,000 GetMetricStatistics or ListMetrics requests. For each query Grafana will
issue a GetMetricStatistics request and every time you pick a dimenion in the query editor
Grafana will issue a ListMetrics request.
Direct access is still supported because in some cases it may be useful to access a Data Source directly depending on the use case and topology of Grafana, the user, and the Data Source.
