While there are many tools that can be used to monitor the health of resources located in our datacenters, not all of them work with resources in the public cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS), which it collectively refers as Route 53, offers a range of health-check tools.
Monitoring endpoint availability is one of the most simple and useful things you can do with Route 53. This column will explain how.
Before I begin, I want to remind you that Route 53 is designed primarily for monitoring resources hosted on AWS. This doesn’t mean that you can’t monitor resources hosted elsewhere. AWS charges an additional fee to monitor external resources. The cost difference is approximately $0.25 per monthly health check and $1 per month for each option. This is in addition to the basic health-check rate. Here is more information about the pricing for AWS health check.
Log in to AWS Console and click on Route 53 link. This link is located in the Network & Content delivery section. After logging in, you will see the AWS Route 53 splash screen. This displays a list of all Route 53 functions. As shown in Figure 1, click the Get Started Now button located in the Availability Monitor section.
[Click on the image to see a larger version.] Figure 1: Click on the Get Started Now button in the Availability Monitoring section. You will then be taken to Figure 2’s Welcome to Route 53 Screen for Health Checks. This screen will allow you to set up availability monitoring and performance monitoring as well as DNS failover. Click on the Create a Health Check button to get started.
[Click on the image to see a larger version.] Figure 2: To get started, click the Create Health Check button. You will now be taken to the screen where you can create the actual health check. First, you will need to give the check a name. This is a friendly name, which is meant to help you distinguish between the different health checks you may set up. You can use any name you like, provided it isn’t already in common use.
Next, tell AWS what you want to monitor. We are currently focusing our attention on endpoint monitoring so we recommend the Endpoint option (see Figure 3).
[Click on the image to see a larger version.] Figure 3: Select the Endpoint option from the What to Monitor section. You will now need to provide information about the endpoint you wish to monitor. You can specify the endpoint either by its fully qualified domain name, or by its IP address.
You can also choose the protocol you want to use to monitor the endpoint. The default option (HTTP), is likely to be used if the endpoint is a web site. However, HTTP is not the only option. You can also use HTTPS and TCP. AWS currently does not support FTP or SMTP.
You will see that the interface also includes a port option if you look at Figure 3. Based on the monitoring protocol you choose, the Port field will be automatically filled. You can however specify a custom port number if you wish.
AWS also allows you to monitor a specific path on an endpoint. If I wanted to monitor my Web site, I could go to www.BrienPosey.com. However, if I wanted to monitor a page on my site that is dedicated my commercial astronaut training, I would enter www.brienposey.com with the domain and space as the path.
You don’t have to create a basic check. You can create an advanced check. You will see an Advanced Configuration section in Figure 3. Expanding the thi
