Get data from a Windows host or Amazon Web Services.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to:

  1. Log in to Tanzu Observability by Wavefront.
  2. Send data from applications and services that run on your AWS account.
  3. Visualize data with preconfigured dashboards and charts.

It’s an easy setup. You don’t have to install anything or make changes to your application code.

screenshot of tutorial dashboards list screenshot tour pro dashboards list

Task 1: Log In to Your Wavefront Instance

If you’ve never logged in to your company’s Wavefront instance, follow these steps. Go to Task 2 otherwise.

  1. Check your email! When your administrator adds you to the Wavefront instance, you receive an email with the subject that includes You have been invited by <email> to Wavefront!.
  2. Click the link in the email.
    • In some environments, you set up your password and you’re done.
    • If your administrator has configured Single Sign-On (SSO), you’re redirected to your company’s SSO environment. When you complete the authentication steps, you’re redirected to the Wavefront instance.
  3. Going forward, you can log in using the https://<my_instance>.wavefront.com URL. The Wavefront instance name is in the invitation email.

Task 2: Set Up the Integration

In this task, we’ll set up a data ingestion pipeline with AWS.

Step 1: Start Integration Setup

  1. Click Integrations on the toolbar. An integration tile usually has:
    • A Setup tab which provides step-by-step instructions on setting up the integration.
    • A Dashboards tab to access the out-of-the-box dashboards. Popular integrations also have an Alerts tab with preconfigured alerts.
  2. Click the Amazon Web Services (AWS) tile.
  3. Click the Setup tab and click Add Integration. Highlights the Add Integration button on the AWS integration's Setup tab.
  4. Click the How to get Role ARN link.

You’ll see Account ID and External ID under How to get Role ARN. You’ll need them to set up the integration.

Step 2: Create a Wavefront Read-Only Role in Your AWS Account

Follow these steps:

  1. On a web browser tab, log in to your AWS account.
  2. Search for the IAM (AWS Identity and Access Management) service and click it to open the service.
  3. In the left panel, click Roles, and click Create role.
  4. Create a trusted entity:
    1. Click the AWS Account tile and select the Another AWS account radio button.
    2. Enter the Account ID: Copy the Account ID value shown in the AWS integration setup instructions and paste it here. A diagram that shows where the account ID is on the Wavefront integration and an arrow pointing how to copy and paste on the AWS account.
    3. Select the Require external ID check box. A screenshot of the external ID option selected.
    4. Enter the External ID. Copy the External ID value shown in the AWS integration setup instructions and paste it here. A diagram that shows where the external ID is on the Wavefront integration and an arrow pointing how to copy and paste on the AWS account.
    5. Click Next.
  5. Set Permissions:
    1. Search for the ReadOnlyAccess permission and select it.

      A screenshot that shows the ReadOnlyAccess permission selected.

    2. Click Next.
  6. Set the Role name as wavefront.
  7. Click Create role.
  8. Once the list of roles appears, click wavefront (the role you just created), and copy the ARN value.

Step 3: Configure the AWS Integration

Go back to the Wavefront instance where you opened the AWS integration tile, and follow these steps:

  1. Paste the Role ARN value you copied in the previous step as the value for “Role ARN” from Amazon IAM.
  2. Click Register.
Screenshot of the AWS integration's configure section. The Register button is highlighted in red.

Tanzu Observability by Wavefront can now connect to your AWS account and get data. Once the data starts flowing, you can visualize them. It will take a few minutes for the data to show.

Step 4: (Optional) Launch an EC2 Instance

Don’t have an application running on your AWS account? Follow the steps given below. If you already have an application running on the AWS account, move to the next task and see how you can visualize your data.

  1. Go back to your AWS account, search for the EC2 service, and click it to open the service.
  2. Follow the AWS documentation on Launching an Amazon EC2 Instance.

Once the instance is launched, you’ll see the data after a few minutes.

Learn More About Data Ingestion and the AWS Integration

Task 3: Explore Data with Out-of-the-Box Dashboards

With data flowing, you can start exploring dashboards and charts:

View Metrics

  1. In your Wavefront instance, go to the AWS integration.
  2. Click the Metrics tab.

You see charts with the metrics collected from your AWS account.

Example: Screenshot of the AWS metrics once the data starts to flow to Wavefront.


View Data on Dashboards

Tanzu Observability includes system dashboards for the AWS integration that help you analyze and gather data.

  1. To see the list of the system dashboards, click the Dashboards tab. Screenshot of all the predefined dashboards available for Wavefront.
  2. Click AWS: Summary. From the Summary dashboard, you can easily navigate to all other AWS dashboards.

    Screenshot of the predefined AWS summary dashboard

Learn More About Dashboards and Charts

This 90-second video gives a great overview of how to interact with dashboards and charts.

Task 4: Set Up and Use an Out-of-the-Box Alert

Many integrations have preconfigured alerts for common use cases. All you have to do is:

  • Clone the alert.
  • Edit the thresholds (for most alerts).
  • Specify who should receive the alert notification, i.e. the recipient of the alert.
1. Navigate to the Integrations page.

2. Click the integration that you want to use. A configured integration has a green tick in the top right. 		Screenshot of several integrations, icon with green tick in top right
3. On the Alerts tab, click Install All. Here's an example screenshot from the AWS integration. Not all integrations have preconfigured alerts.

You can now edit the alert directly, but we recommend that you clone the alert so you don't lose your changes in case you reinstall the alerts. 		Screenshot that shows the Alerts tab of the AWS integration
4. From the toolbar, select Alerting > All Alerts and search for the alert by name.

In this example, we'll clone the EC2 Instance CPU Usage Too High alert. When you clone the alert, the new alert opens in Edit mode. 		Screenshot of the Alerts Browser, where we've searched for the ECS instance CPU usage too high alert
5. Customize the thresholds. For example, you can set up the alert to be SEVERE when 97% of CPU utilization is reached. 6. Scroll down to the Recipients section. For the lowest severity level that you want notification for:
   a. Click the plus (+) icon.
   b. Enter your email address.
   c. Press Enter.

 Screenshot of the recipients section of the alert where we've entered the email address
When the threshold is exceeded, you'll receive an email that includes a link to the alert in the Alert Viewer.

The annotated screenshot on the right can help you get started with the Alert Viewer.

This short video shows what you can do. 		Annotated screenshot of the alert viewer

Learn More About Alerts

Video: Set Up Data Ingestion from a Windows Host

Watch the following video to learn how to ingest Windows host metrics.

You can also watch the video here video camera icon

Frequently Asked Questions

Our Success Value Engineering team shared some frequently asked questions – and where you can find the answers.

tutorials