Set up production-ready monitoring for Amazon MSK using CloudWatch alarms
Big Data Blog
This article provides a comprehensive guide to setting up production-ready monitoring for Amazon MSK clusters using CloudWatch alarms and metrics.
- Monitor broker health metrics: ActiveControllerCount, OfflinePartitionsCount, UnderReplicatedPartitions
- Track resource utilization: CPU under 60%, HeapMemoryAfterGC under 60%, disk usage under 85%
- Watch topic/partition activity: BytesInPerSec, BytesOutPerSec, consumer lag metrics
- Monitor client connections: ConnectionCount, ConnectionCreationRate, IAM authentication limits
- Alert on network throttling: TrafficShaping, BwInAllowanceExceeded, BwOutAllowanceExceeded
- Set alarms for critical thresholds: offline partitions, under-replicated partitions, disk queue length
- Use CloudWatch automatic dashboards for pre-configured MSK visualizations
- Adjust thresholds based on workload SLAs; test on single cluster first
Effective MSK monitoring prevents service disruptions, data loss, and performance degradation by detecting anomalies early and enabling proactive remediation.
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