SOA-C03 practice question: CloudWatch agent and log collection (1 of 2)

Monitoring, Logging, Analysis, Remediation, and Performance Optimization A free question from our original SOA-C03 practice exam. Try it, then open the answer to see why each option is right or wrong.

A solar installer runs its quoting application on 40 Amazon Linux EC2 instances. The operations team needs to alarm when memory utilization or root-volume disk usage passes 85 percent. They notice that these metrics are not in the AWS/EC2 namespace, even with detailed monitoring turned on. The instances are already managed by AWS Systems Manager. Which TWO actions will provide the metrics? (Choose two.)

Choose two answers.

A. Attach the CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy managed policy to the IAM role in the instances' instance profile.
B. Turn on Systems Manager Inventory on the instances so that it collects memory and disk usage and publishes them to CloudWatch.
C. Turn on Compute Optimizer enhanced infrastructure metrics so that memory and disk usage appear in CloudWatch for each instance.
D. Install the CloudWatch agent on all instances with Systems Manager, and configure it to collect mem_used_percent and disk_used_percent.
E. Create a CloudWatch Logs metric filter on /var/log/messages that extracts memory and disk usage values into custom metrics.

Show the answer and explanation

Answers: A, D

A. Right: Correct. The CloudWatch agent publishes metrics with the instance's role credentials. This managed policy grants the PutMetricData and CloudWatch Logs permissions the agent needs. Learn more: Create IAM roles to use with the CloudWatch agent (opens in a new tab)
B. Wrong: Inventory collects metadata such as installed applications, network settings and files. It does not measure utilization or publish CloudWatch metrics that an alarm could use. Learn more: AWS Systems Manager Inventory (opens in a new tab)
C. Wrong: Enhanced infrastructure metrics extend the lookback period Compute Optimizer uses for its recommendations. It does not collect or publish memory or disk metrics to CloudWatch. Learn more: Enhanced infrastructure metrics (opens in a new tab)
D. Right: Correct. Memory and disk space are measured inside the operating system, so the hypervisor cannot see them. The CloudWatch agent collects them, and Systems Manager can install and configure it across the fleet. Learn more: Collect metrics and logs with the CloudWatch agent (opens in a new tab)
E. Wrong: The system log does not record memory and disk usage at regular intervals, so a metric filter has nothing reliable to extract. The CloudWatch agent is the supported collector for these values. Learn more: Creating metrics from log events using filters (opens in a new tab)

Explanation

Memory and disk usage are guest operating system metrics, so EC2 cannot report them from outside the instance. The CloudWatch agent collects them and publishes them to the CWAgent namespace, using an instance role that includes CloudWatchAgentServerPolicy. Systems Manager makes installing and configuring the agent on 40 instances a single operation.

SOA-C03 practice question: CloudWatch agent and log collection (1 of 2)

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