How to use IBM App Connect with Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and management service that offers data and useful insights for on-premises, hybrid, and AWS resources and applications that run on AWS in real time. Amazon CloudWatch can be used to collect and track metrics, which are the variables used to measure resources and applications.

Connecting to Amazon CloudWatch

Complete the connection fields that you see in the App Connect Designer Connect > Applications and APIs page (previously the Catalog page) or flow editor. If necessary, work with your Amazon CloudWatch administrator to obtain these values.

Amazon CloudWatch authorization types and connection fields:

BASIC: Secret access key: The secret access key of your Amazon CloudWatch account. Get the secret access key from the Security Credentials page in the AWS Management Console.; Access key ID: The access key ID of your Amazon CloudWatch account. Get the access key ID from the Security Credentials page in the AWS Management Console.; Region: The region of your Amazon CloudWatch instance, for example, us-east-1. You can find the value for the Region parameter at the end of the URL when you are logged in to the AWS Management Console (for example, https://us-east-2.console.aws.amazon.com/console/home?region=us-east-2#).
Tip: For more information, see AWS service endpoints on the AWS documentation page.

BASIC OIDC: Region: The region of your Amazon CloudWatch instance, for example, us-east-1. You can find the value for the Region parameter at the end of the URL when you are logged in to the AWS Management Console (for example, https://us-east-2.console.aws.amazon.com/console/home?region=us-east-2#).
Tip: For more information, see AWS service endpoints on the AWS documentation page.; Client ID: Specify the unique identifier assigned to an application within an OpenID Connect (OIDC) system; Client secret: Specify the client secret that is used to authenticate the client application; ID token: The security token in OpenID Connect (OIDC) that contains claims about the authentication of a user, such as their identity and session validity, typically represented as a JSON Web Token (JWT); Refresh token: The refresh token that is generated from the application client ID and client secret; Role ARN: The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) that specifies an IAM role in AWS, defining the permissions granted to users authenticated via an OpenID Connect-compatible identity provider; OIDC server URL: Specify the URL of the OpenID Connect (OIDC) server or identity provider that handles authentication and provides tokens for clients

OIDC WEB: Region: The region of your Amazon CloudWatch instance, for example, us-east-1. You can find the value for the Region parameter at the end of the URL when you are logged in to the AWS Management Console (for example, https://us-east-2.console.aws.amazon.com/console/home?region=us-east-2#).
Tip: For more information, see AWS service endpoints on the AWS documentation page.; Client ID: Specify the unique identifier assigned to an application within an OpenID Connect (OIDC) system; Client secret: Specify the client secret that is used to authenticate the client application; Role ARN: The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) that specifies an IAM role in AWS, defining the permissions granted to users authenticated via an OpenID Connect-compatible identity provider; OIDC server URL: Specify the URL of the OpenID Connect (OIDC) server or identity provider that handles authentication and provides tokens for clients

To obtain the connection values for Amazon CloudWatch, see Obtaining connection values for Amazon CloudWatch.

To connect to an Amazon CloudWatch endpoint from the App Connect Designer Applications and APIs page for the first time, expand Amazon CloudWatch, then click Connect. For more information, see Managing accounts.

Tip:

Before you use the account that is created in App Connect in a flow, rename the account to something meaningful that helps you to identify it. To rename the account on the Applications and APIs page, select the account, open its options menu (⋮), then click Rename Account.

General considerations

Before you use App Connect Designer with Amazon CloudWatch, take note of the following considerations:

(General consideration) You can see lists of the trigger events and actions that are available on the Applications and APIs page of the App Connect Designer.
For some applications, the events and actions depend on the environment and whether the connector supports configurable events and dynamic discovery of actions. If the application supports configurable events, you see a Show more configurable events link under the events list. If the application supports dynamic discovery of actions, you see a Show more link under the actions list.
(General consideration) If you are using multiple accounts for an application, the set of fields that is displayed when you select an action for that application can vary for different accounts. In the flow editor, some applications always provide a curated set of static fields for an action. Other applications use dynamic discovery to retrieve the set of fields that are configured on the instance that you are connected to. For example, if you have two accounts for two instances of an application, the first account might use settings that are ready for immediate use. However, the second account might be configured with extra custom fields.

Events and actions

Amazon CloudWatch events

These events are for changes in this application that trigger a flow to start completing the actions in the flow.

Note: Events are not available for changes in this application. You can trigger a flow in other ways, such as at a scheduled interval or at specific dates and times.

Amazon CloudWatch actions

Your flow completes these actions on this application.

Object	Action	Description
Composite alarms	Retrieve composite alarms	Retrieves the composite alarms
	Update or create composite alarm	Updates an existing composite alarms or creates a new composite alarms if it doesn't exist
	Disable composite alarm	Disables the composite alarm
	Enable composite alarm	Enables the composite alarm
Export tasks	Create export task	Creates a export task to enable the search and analysis
Export tasks	Retrieve export task	Retrieves the export tasks
Log events	Retrieve filtered log events	Retrieves the log events
	Retrieve log events	Retrieves the log events
	Create multiple log events	Create multiple log events
Log groups	Create log group	Adds a log group to Amazon CloudWatch logs to enable the search and analysis
	Retrieve log groups	Retrieves the log groups
	Delete log group	Deletes a log group
Log streams	Create log stream	Creates a log stream for the specified log group
	Retrieve log streams	Retrieves the log streams
	Delete log stream	Deletes a log stream
Metric alarms	Update or create metric alarm	Updates an existing metric alarms or creates a new metric alarms if it doesn't exist
	Retrieve metric alarms	Retrieves the metric alarms
	Delete metric alarm	Deletes a metric alarm
	Enable metric alarm	Enables the metric alarm
	Disable metric alarm	Disables the metric alarm
Metric streams	Retrieve metric streams	Retrieves the metric streams
	Update or create metric stream	Updates an existing metric stream or creates a new metric stream if it doesn't exist
	Delete metric alarm	Deletes a metric stream
	Start metric stream	Starts the metric stream
	Stop metric stream	Stops the metric stream
Metrics	Retrieve metrics	Retrieves the metrics
Metrics	Publish custom metric data	Updates an existing metrics or creates a new metrics if it doesn't exist

Examples

Dashboard tile for a template that uses Amazon CloudWatch

Use templates to quickly create flows for Amazon CloudWatch

Learn how to use App Connect templates to quickly create flows that perform actions on Amazon CloudWatch.For example, open Discover, and then search for Amazon CloudWatch.

Learn more

Use IBM® App Connect to build flows that integrate with Amazon CloudWatch.

Read the blog in the IBM Community to learn how to trigger an alarm whenever the threshold is violated based on the Amazon CloudWatch published metric data. Click Read the blog to go to the blog.

Read the blog