PutMetricData - Amazon CloudWatch
Request ParametersErrorsExamplesSee Also
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PutMetricData

Publishes metric data to Amazon CloudWatch. CloudWatch associates the data with the specified metric. If the specified metric does not exist, CloudWatch creates the metric. When CloudWatch creates a metric, it can take up to fifteen minutes for the metric to appear in calls to ListMetrics.

You can publish metrics with associated entity data (so that related telemetry can be found and viewed together), or publish metric data by itself. To send entity data with your metrics, use the EntityMetricData parameter. To send metrics without entity data, use the MetricData parameter. The EntityMetricData structure includes MetricData structures for the metric data.

You can publish either individual values in the Value field, or arrays of values and the number of times each value occurred during the period by using the Values and Counts fields in the MetricData structure. Using the Values and Counts method enables you to publish up to 150 values per metric with one PutMetricData request, and supports retrieving percentile statistics on this data.

Each PutMetricData request is limited to 1 MB in size for HTTP POST requests. You can send a payload compressed by gzip. Each request is also limited to no more than 1000 different metrics (across both the MetricData and EntityMetricData properties).

Although the Value parameter accepts numbers of type Double, CloudWatch rejects values that are either too small or too large. Values must be in the range of -2^360 to 2^360. In addition, special values (for example, NaN, +Infinity, -Infinity) are not supported.

You can use up to 30 dimensions per metric to further clarify what data the metric collects. Each dimension consists of a Name and Value pair. For more information about specifying dimensions, see Publishing Metrics in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

You specify the time stamp to be associated with each data point. You can specify time stamps that are as much as two weeks before the current date, and as much as 2 hours after the current day and time.

Data points with time stamps from 24 hours ago or longer can take at least 48 hours to become available for GetMetricData or GetMetricStatistics from the time they are submitted. Data points with time stamps between 3 and 24 hours ago can take as much as 2 hours to become available for GetMetricData or GetMetricStatistics.

CloudWatch needs raw data points to calculate percentile statistics. If you publish data using a statistic set instead, you can only retrieve percentile statistics for this data if one of the following conditions is true:

  • The SampleCount value of the statistic set is 1 and Min, Max, and Sum are all equal.

  • The Min and Max are equal, and Sum is equal to Min multiplied by SampleCount.

Request Parameters

EntityMetricData

Data for metrics that contain associated entity information. You can include up to two EntityMetricData objects, each of which can contain a single Entity and associated metrics.

The limit of metrics allowed, 1000, is the sum of both EntityMetricData and MetricData metrics.

Type: Array of EntityMetricData objects

Required: No

MetricData

The data for the metrics. Use this parameter if your metrics do not contain associated entities. The array can include no more than 1000 metrics per call.

The limit of metrics allowed, 1000, is the sum of both EntityMetricData and MetricData metrics.

Type: Array of MetricDatum objects

Required: No

Namespace

The namespace for the metric data. You can use ASCII characters for the namespace, except for control characters which are not supported.

To avoid conflicts with Amazon service namespaces, you should not specify a namespace that begins with AWS/

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.

Pattern: [^:].*

Required: Yes

StrictEntityValidation

Whether to accept valid metric data when an invalid entity is sent.

  • When set to true: Any validation error (for entity or metric data) will fail the entire request, and no data will be ingested. The failed operation will return a 400 result with the error.

  • When set to false: Validation errors in the entity will not associate the metric with the entity, but the metric data will still be accepted and ingested. Validation errors in the metric data will fail the entire request, and no data will be ingested.

    In the case of an invalid entity, the operation will return a 200 status, but an additional response header will contain information about the validation errors. The new header, X-Amzn-Failure-Message is an enumeration of the following values:

    • InvalidEntity - The provided entity is invalid.

    • InvalidKeyAttributes - The provided KeyAttributes of an entity is invalid.

    • InvalidAttributes - The provided Attributes of an entity is invalid.

    • InvalidTypeValue - The provided Type in the KeyAttributes of an entity is invalid.

    • EntitySizeTooLarge - The number of EntityMetricData objects allowed is 2.

    • MissingRequiredFields - There are missing required fields in the KeyAttributes for the provided Type.

    For details of the requirements for specifying an entity, see How to add related information to telemetry in the CloudWatch User Guide.

This parameter is required when EntityMetricData is included.

Type: Boolean

Required: No

Errors

For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common Errors.

InternalServiceError

Request processing has failed due to some unknown error, exception, or failure.

Message

HTTP Status Code: 500

InvalidParameterCombination

Parameters were used together that cannot be used together.

message

HTTP Status Code: 400

InvalidParameterValue

The value of an input parameter is bad or out-of-range.

message

HTTP Status Code: 400

MissingParameter

An input parameter that is required is missing.

message

HTTP Status Code: 400

Examples

Example

The following example puts data for a single metric containing one dimension:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&Namespace=TestNamespace
&MetricData.member.1.MetricName=buffers
&MetricData.member.1.Unit=Bytes
&MetricData.member.1.Value=231434333
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceType
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Value=m1.small
&AUTHPARAMS

Example

The following example puts data for a single metric containing two dimensions:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&Namespace=TestNamespace
&MetricData.member.1.MetricName=buffers
&MetricData.member.1.Unit=Bytes
&MetricData.member.1.Value=231434333
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Name=InstanceType
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Value=m1.small
&AUTHPARAMS

Example

The following example puts data for two metrics, each with two dimensions:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&Namespace=TestNamespace
&MetricData.member.1.MetricName=buffers
&MetricData.member.1.Unit=Bytes
&MetricData.member.1.Value=231434333
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Name=InstanceType
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Value=m1.small
&MetricData.member.2.MetricName=latency
&MetricData.member.2.Unit=Milliseconds
&MetricData.member.2.Value=23
&MetricData.member.2.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&MetricData.member.2.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&MetricData.member.2.Dimensions.member.2.Name=InstanceType
&MetricData.member.2.Dimensions.member.2.Value=m1.small
&AUTHPARAMS

Example

The following example puts data for a high-resolution metric:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&Namespace=HighResolutionMetric
&MetricData.member.1.MetricName=HighResdata
&MetricData.member.1.Unit=Bytes
&MetricData.member.1.Value=542868
&MetricData.member.1.StorageResolution=1
&AUTHPARAMS

Example

The following example puts multiple values for each of two metrics, using Values and Counts arrays:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&Namespace=TestNamespace
&MetricData.member.1.MetricName=Reads
&MetricData.member.1.Unit=Count
&MetricData.member.1.Values.member.1=5
&MetricData.member.1.Values.member.2=8
&MetricData.member.1.Values.member.3=10
&MetricData.member.1.Values.member.4=9
&MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.1=1
&MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.2=5
&MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.3=6
&MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.4=5
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&MetricData.member.2.MetricName=Writes
&MetricData.member.2.Unit=Count
&MetricData.member.2.Values.member.1=2
&MetricData.member.2.Values.member.2=3
&MetricData.member.2.Values.member.3=0
&MetricData.member.2.Counts.member.1=2
&MetricData.member.2.Counts.member.2=2
&MetricData.member.2.Counts.member.3=1
&MetricData.member.2.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&MetricData.member.2.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&AUTHPARAMS

Example

The following example uses EntityMetricData to put a metric with entity data for a service running in Amazon EC2:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&StrictEntityValidation=true
&Namespace=TestNamespace
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.1.key=Type
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.1.value=Service
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.2.key=Name
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.2.value=MyTestService
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.3.key=Environment
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.3.value=MyTestEnvironment
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.1.key=PlatformType
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.1.value=AWS::EC2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.2.key=EC2.InstanceId
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.2.value=i-1234567890abcdef0
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.MetricName=buffers
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Timestamp=2024-11-06T02:16:28Z
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Unit=Count
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Values.member.1=2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Values.member.2=3
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Values.member.3=0
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.1=2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.2=2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.3=1
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Name=InstanceType
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Value=m1.small
&AUTHPARAMS

Example

The following example uses EntityMetricData to put a metric with entity data for a service running in Lambda:

Sample Request

https://monitoring.us-west-1.amazonaws.com
?Action=PutMetricData
&Version=2010-08-01
&StrictEntityValidation=true
&Namespace=TestNamespace
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.1.key=Type
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.1.value=Service
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.2.key=Name
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.2.value=MyTestService
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.3.key=Environment
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.KeyAttributes.entry.3.value=MyTestEnvironment
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.1.key=PlatformType
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.1.value=AWS::Lambda
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.2.key=Lambda.Function
&EntityMetricData.member.1.Entity.Attributes.entry.2.value=MyTestFunction
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.MetricName=faults
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Timestamp=2024-11-06T02:16:28Z
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Unit=Count
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Values.member.1=2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Values.member.2=3
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Values.member.3=0
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.1=2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.2=2
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Counts.member.3=1
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Name=InstanceID
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.1.Value=i-aaba32d4
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Name=InstanceType
&EntityMetricData.member.1.MetricData.member.1.Dimensions.member.2.Value=m1.small
&AUTHPARAMS

See Also

For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific Amazon SDKs, see the following: