Key metrics for Amazon EBS monitoring

Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) is a cloud-based storage service that provides block-level storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances. Unlike instance store volumes, EBS volumes maintain their state when stopped or detached from an instance and can be connected to multiple instances within the same availability zone. EBS volumes provide redundancy and data backup through snapshots, which are stored in S3 buckets and can be transferred across AWS regions. EBS-optimized instances offer dedicated bandwidth for EBS volumes, separate from other network activity, with varying levels of performance depending on the instance type. Understanding the network configuration of your EC2 instances and attached volumes is crucial to ensure optimal disk performance. EBS volumes come in different types, including SSD (gp2 and io1) and HDD (st1 and sc1), each with distinct characteristics suited for specific workloads. Mixing and matching volume types can open up various use cases, such as running a high-transaction database on gp2 volumes while storing logs on sc1 volumes. Monitoring EBS volumes is essential to ensure application health and optimal configuration. Key metrics to track include IOPS, throughput, block size, latency, disk activity, status checks, and scheduled events. Amazon CloudWatch provides a convenient way to view these metrics for your EBS volumes and other AWS services.