RDSTop Monitoring Solution for AWS RDS

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What is RDSTop Monitoring ?

RDSTop is lightweight application to perform realtime monitoring for AWS RDS and Amazon Aurora instances. Based on same simplicity concept of Unix top utility, provide quick and fast view of database performance, just all in one screen.

How looks like RDSTop Monitoring ?

rds-top-monitoring-vid01.mp4

How it works?

Database engine support

RDSTop Monitoring Solution currently supports following database engines:

• AWS RDS for MySQL
• AWS RDS for PostgreSQL
• AWS RDS for MariaDB
• Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition
• Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition
• AWS RDS for Oracle
• AWS RDS for SQLServer

Additional expanded support coming later to :

• Amazon DocumentDB
• Amazon ElastiCache for Redis
• Amazon MemoryDB for Redis

Solution Components

• Frontend. React Developed Application to provide user interface to visualize performance database information.

• Backend. NodeJS API Component to gather performance information from database engines, AWS CloudWatch and RDS Enhanced Monitoring.

Architecture

Use cases

• Monitor instance performance. Visualize performance data on realtime, and correlate data to understand and resolve the root cause of performance issues in your database instances.

• Perform root cause analysis. Analyze database and operating system metrics to speed up debugging and reduce overall mean time to resolution.

• Optimize resources proactively. Identify top consumer sessions, gather SQL statements and resource usages.

Solution Requirements

Amazon RDS Enhanced Monitoring

Amazon RDS provides metrics in real time for the operating system (OS) that your DB instance runs on. RDSTop Monitoring solution integrate metrics from Enhanced Monitoring and it has to be enabled. Follow procedure below to turn on Enhanced Monitoring.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_Monitoring.OS.Enabling.html

VPC Network Access to AWS RDS Instances

RDSTop Monitoring Solution needs to access privately AWS RDS Instances, grant access inboud rules and security groups.

Solution Deployment

Time to deploy: Approximately 10 minutes.

Create database monitoring users

Database credentials are needed to connect to the database engine and gather real-time metrics, use following statements to create the monitoring users.

MySQL

CREATE USER 'monitor'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '<PASSWORD>';
GRANT PROCESS ON *.* TO 'monitor'@'%' ;

PostgreSQL

CREATE USER monitor WITH PASSWORD '<PASSWORD>';
GRANT pg_read_all_stats TO monitor;

MS SQLServer

USE [master]
GO
CREATE LOGIN [monitor] WITH PASSWORD=N'<PASSWORD>', DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master], CHECK_EXPIRATION=ON, CHECK_POLICY=ON
GO
use [master]
GO
GRANT CONNECT SQL TO [monitor]
GO
GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO [monitor]
GO

Oracle

CREATE USER monitor IDENTIFIED BY '<PASSWORD>';
GRANT CREATE SESSION,SELECT ANY DICTIONARY TO monitor;

Launch CloudFormation Stack

Follow the step-by-step instructions to configure and deploy the RDSTop into your account.

1. Make sure you have sign in AWS Console already.
2. Click the following button to launch the CloudFormation Console in your account and use Cloudformation template (RdsMonitoringSolution.template) located on conf folder.

3. Input Stack name parameter.
4. Input Username parameter, this username will be used to access the application. An email will be sent with temporary password from AWS Cognito Service.
5. Input AWS Linux AMI parameter, this parameter specify AWS AMI to build App EC2 Server. Keep default value.
6. Select Instance Type parameter, indicate what instance size is needed.
7. Select VPC Name parameter, indicate VPC to be used to deploy application server.
8. Select Subnet Name parameter, indicate private subnet to be used to deploy application server. This private subnet needs to have internet access, also application server needs to be able to reach AWS RDS Instances, add appropiate inboud rules and security groups.
9. Select PublicAccess parameter, indicate if Public Address is needed.
10. Input CIDR Inbound access rule for RDSTop Monitoring Solution.
11. Click Next, Click Next, select acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources with custom names. and Click Submit.
12. Once Cloudformation has been deployed, gather application URL from output stack section. Username will be same you introduce on step 4 and temporary password will be sent by AWS Cognito Service.
13. Application deployment will take around 5 minutes to be completed.

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