Custom metrics and extended metrics that you can send to CloudWatch and CloudWatch Evidently - Amazon CloudWatch
Custom metricsExtended metrics
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Custom metrics and extended metrics that you can send to CloudWatch and CloudWatch Evidently

By default, RUM app monitors send metrics to CloudWatch. These default metrics and dimensions are listed in CloudWatch metrics that you can collect with CloudWatch RUM.

You can also set up an app monitor to export metric. The app monitor can send extended metrics, custom metrics, or both. It can send them to CloudWatch or to CloudWatch Evidently, or to both.

  • Custom metrics– Custom metrics are metrics that you define. With custom metrics, you can use any metric name and namespace. To derive the metrics, you can use any custom events, built-in events, custom attributes, or default attributes.

    You can send custom metrics to both CloudWatch and CloudWatch Evidently.

  • Extended metrics– Lets you send the default CloudWatch RUM metrics to CloudWatch Evidently to be used in Evidently experiments. You can also send any of the default CloudWatch RUM metrics to CloudWatch with additional dimensions. This way, these metrics can give you a more fine-grained view.

Custom metrics

To send custom metrics, you must use the Amazon APIs or Amazon CLI instead of the console. For more information about using the Amazon APIs, see PutRumMetricsDestination and BatchCreateRumMetricDefinitions.

The maximum number of extended metric and custom metric definitions that one destination can contain is 2000. For each custom metric or extended metric that you send to each destination, each combination of dimension name and dimension value counts toward this limit. This also counts as a CloudWatch custom metric for pricing.

The following example shows how to create a custom metric derived from a custom event. Here is the example custom event that is used:

cwr('recordEvent', {
    type: 'my_custom_event', 
    data: {
        location: 'IAD', 
        current_url: 'amazonaws.com', 
        user_interaction: {
            interaction_1 : "click",
            interaction_2 : "scroll"
        }, 
        visit_count:10
    }
})

Given this custom event, you can create a custom metric that counts the number of visits to the amazonaws.com URL from Chrome browsers. The following definition creates a metric named AmazonVisitsCount in your account, in the RUM/CustomMetrics/PageVisits namespace.

{
    "AppMonitorName":"customer-appMonitor-name",
    "Destination":"CloudWatch",
    "MetricDefinitions":[
        {
            "Name":"AmazonVisitsCount",
            "Namespace":"PageVisit",
            "ValueKey":"event_details.visit_count",
            "UnitLabel":"Count",
            "DimensionKeys":{
                "event_details.current_url": "URL"
            },
            "EventPattern":"{\"metadata\":{\"browserName\":[\"Chrome\"]},\"event_type\":[\"my_custom_event\"],\"event_details\": {\"current_url\": [\"amazonaws.com\"]}}" 
        }
    ]
}

Extended metrics

If you set up extended metrics, you can do one or both of the following:

  • Send default CloudWatch RUM metrics to CloudWatch Evidently to be used in Evidently experiments. Only the PerformanceNavigationDuration, PerformanceResourceDuration, WebVitalsCumulativeLayoutShift, WebVitalsFirstInputDelay, and WebVitalsLargestContentfulPaint metrics can be sent to Evidently.

  • Send any of the default CloudWatch RUM metrics to CloudWatch with additional dimensions so that the metrics give you a more fine-grained view. For example, you can see metrics specific to a certain browser that's used by your users, or metrics for users in a specific geolocation.

For more information about the default CloudWatch RUM metrics, see CloudWatch metrics that you can collect with CloudWatch RUM.

The maximum number of extended metric and custom metric definitions that one destination can contain is 2000. For each extended or custom metric that you send to each destination, each combination of dimension name and dimension value counts as an extended metric for this limit. This also counts as a CloudWatch custom metric for pricing.

When you send extended metrics to CloudWatch, you can use the CloudWatch RUM console to create CloudWatch alarms on them.

Extended metrics are charged as CloudWatch custom metrics. For more information, see Amazon CloudWatch Pricing.

The following dimensions are supported for extended metrics for all the metric names that app monitors can send. These metric names are listed in CloudWatch metrics that you can collect with CloudWatch RUM.

  • BrowserName

    Example dimension values: Chrome, Firefox, Chrome Headless

  • CountryCode This uses the ISO-3166 format, with two-letter codes.

    Example dimension values: US, JP, DE

  • DeviceType

    Example dimension values: desktop, mobile, tablet, embedded

  • FileType

    Example dimension values: Image, Stylesheet

  • OSName

    Example dimension values: Linux, Windows, iOS, Android

  • PageId

Set up extended metrics using the console

To use the console to send extended metrics to CloudWatch, use the following steps.

To send extended metrics to CloudWatch Evidently, you must use the Amazon APIs or Amazon CLI instead of the console. For information about using the Amazon APIs to send extended metrics to either CloudWatch or Evidently, see PutRumMetricsDestination and BatchCreateRumMetricDefinitions.

To use the console to set up an app monitor and send RUM extended metrics to CloudWatch

  1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/cloudwatch/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Signals, RUM.

  3. Choose List view and then choose the name of the app monitor that is to send the metrics.

  4. Choose the Configuration tab and then choose RUM extended metrics.

  5. Choose Send metrics.

  6. Select one or more metric names to send with additional dimensions.

  7. Select one or more factors to use as dimensions for these metrics. As you make your choices, the number of extended metrics that your choices create is displayed in Number of extended metrics.

    This number is calculated by multiplying the number of chosen metric names by the number of different dimensions that you create. This number represents how many custom metrics you are charged for. For more information about CloudWatch pricing, see Amazon CloudWatch Pricing.

    1. To send a metric with page ID as a dimension, choose Browse for page ID and then select the page IDs to use.

    2. To send a metric with device type as a dimension, choose either Desktop devices or Mobile and tablets.

    3. To send a metric with operating system as a dimension, select one or more operating systems under Operating system.

    4. To send a metric with browser type as a dimension, select one or more browsers under Browsers.

    5. To send a metric with geolocation as a dimension, select one or more locations under Locations.

      Only the locations where this app monitor has reported metrics from will appear in the list to choose from.

  8. When you are finished with your choices, choose Send metrics.

  9. (Optional) In the Extended metrics list, to create an alarm that watches one of the metrics, choose Create alarm in that metric's row.

    For general information about CloudWatch alarms, see Using Amazon CloudWatch alarms. For a tutorial for setting an alarm on a CloudWatch RUM extended metric, see Tutorial: create an extended metric and alarm it.

Stop sending extended metrics

To use the console to stop sending extended metrics

  1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/cloudwatch/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Signals, RUM.

  3. Choose List view and then choose the name of the app monitor that is to send the metrics.

  4. Choose the Configuration tab and then choose RUM extended metrics.

  5. Select one or more metric name and dimension combinations to stop sending. Then choose Actions, Delete.

Tutorial: create an extended metric and alarm it

This tutorial demonstrates how to set up an extended metric to be sent to CloudWatch, and then how to set an alarm on that metric. In this tutorial, you create a metric that tracks JavaScript errors on the Chrome browser.

To set up this extended metric and set an alarm on it

  1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/cloudwatch/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Signals, RUM.

  3. Choose List view and then choose the name of the app monitor that is to send the metric.

  4. Choose the Configuration tab and then choose RUM extended metrics.

  5. Choose Send metrics.

  6. Select JSErrorCount.

  7. Under Browsers, select Chrome.

    This combination of JSErrorCount and Chrome will send one extended metric to CloudWatch. The metric counts JavaScript errors only for user sessions that use the Chrome browser. The metric name will be JsErrorCount and the dimension name will be Browser.

  8. Choose Send metrics.

  9. In the Extended metrics list, choose Create alarm in the row that displays JsErrorCount under Name and displays Chrome under BrowserName.

  10. Under Specify metric and conditions, confirm that the Metric name and BrowserName fields are pre-filled with the correct values.

  11. For Statistic, select the statistic that you want to use for the alarm. Average is a good choice for this type of counting metric.

  12. For Period, select 5 minutes.

  13. Under Conditions, do the following:

    • Choose Static.

    • Choose Greater to specify that the alarm should go into ALARM state when the number of errors is higher than the threshold you are about to specify.

    • Under than..., enter the number for the alarm threshold. The alarm goes into ALARM state when the number of errors over a 5-minute period exceeds this number.

  14. (Optional) By default, the alarm goes into ALARM state as soon as the number of errors exceeds the threshold number you set during a 5-minute period. You can optionally change this so that the alarm goes into ALARM state only if this number is exceeded for more than one 5-minute period.

    To do so, choose Additional configuration and then for Datapoints to alarm, specify how many 5-minute periods need to have the error number over the threshold to trigger the alarm. For example, you can select 2 out of 2 to have the alarm trigger only when two consecutive 5-minute periods are over the threshold, or 2 out of 3 to have the alarm trigger if any two of three consecutive 5-minute periods are over the threshold.

    For more information about this type of alarm evaluation, see Evaluating an alarm.

  15. Choose Next.

  16. For Configure actions, specify what should happen when the alarm goes into alarm state. To receive a notification with Amazon SNS, do the following:

    • Choose Add notification.

    • Choose In alarm.

    • Either select an existing SNS topic or create a new one. If you create a new one, specify a name for it and add at least one email address to it.

  17. Choose Next.

  18. Enter a name and optional description for the alarm, and choose Next.

  19. Review the details and choose Create alarm.