Amazon Web Services - AWS API Extractor

Depending on your AWS account setup, select a tab and complete the steps:

In a firewall or a proxy-enabled environment, the following AWS services endpoints must be allowed:

• http://monitoring.<region>.amazonaws.com/
• http://ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com/
• http://autoscaling.<region>.amazonaws.com/
• http://sts.<region>.amazonaws.com/
• http://ec2.amazonaws.com/
• http://iam.amazonaws.com/

where <region> is one of the regions in AWS. For more information about regions, see Regions and Availability Zones.

You must configure the ETL to connect to AWS for data collection. ETL configuration includes specifying the basic and optional advanced properties. While configuring the basic properties is sufficient, you can optionally configure the advanced properties for additional customization.

A. Configuring the basic properties

Some of the basic properties display default values. You can modify these values if required.

To configure the basic properties:

1. Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
2. On the ETL tasks page, click Add > Add ETL. The Add ETL page displays the configuration properties. You must configure properties in the following tabs: Run configuration, Entity catalog, and Amazon Web Services Connection
3. On the Run Configuration tab, select Amazon Web Services - AWS API Extractor from the ETL Module list. The name of the ETL is displayed in the ETL task name field. You can edit this field to customize the name.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Entity catalog tab, and select one of the following options:
   

   • Shared Entity Catalog:

     Select if other ETLs access the same entities that are used by the AWS API ETL.

     • From the Sharing with Entity Catalog list, select the entity catalog name that is shared between ETLs.
   • Private Entity Catalog: Select if this is the only ETL that extracts data from the AWS resources.

5. Click the Amazon Web Services Connection tab, and configure the following properties:

6. (Optional) Override the default values of properties in the following tabs:

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   Object relationships

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   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.

   ETL task properties

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   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.

   *Schedulers compatible with this ETL: Generic scheduler (the scheduler preconfigured in Helix, also referred as Cloud ETL Engine), Remote ETL Engine.
   
   

7. Click Save.
8. The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured AWS API ETL.
   
   

(Optional) B. Configuring the advanced properties

You can configure the advanced properties to change the way the ETL works or to collect additional metrics.

While configuring these advanced properties, you will need to specify the path to the JSON files that contain the instance type configuration metrics and other additional metrics. For more information, see Collecting-EC2-instance-metrics-by-using-the-CloudWatch-agent.

To configure the advanced properties:

1. On the Add ETL page, click Advanced.

2. Configure the following properties:

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   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.The [expand] macro is a standalone macro and it cannot be used inline. Click on this message for details.
   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.

   Amazon Web Services Connection

   Property	Description
   Default region	Specify the region where your AWS cloud resources are located. The default value is us-east-1.
   Instance type definition JSON file path	Browse to the file location where you have saved the JSON file that contains the instance type configuration metrics.. Upload the file.
   Additional CloudWatch metrics JSON file path	Browse to the file location where you have saved the JSON file that contains details of additional metrics that are to be collected by the ETL. Upload the file.

   The [expand] macro is a standalone macro and it cannot be used inline. Click on this message for details.
   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.The [expand] macro is a standalone macro and it cannot be used inline. Click on this message for details.
   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.The [expand] macro is a standalone macro and it cannot be used inline. Click on this message for details.
   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.

3. Click Save.
   The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured AWS API ETL.

After you configure the ETL, you can run it to collect data. You can run the ETL in the following modes:

A. Simulation mode: Only validates connection to the data source, does not collect data. Use this mode when you want to run the ETL for the first time or after you make any changes to the ETL configuration.

B. Production mode: Collects data from the data source.

A. To run the ETL in the simulation mode

To run the ETL in the simulation mode:

1. Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
2. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
   
   
   
3. In the Run configurations table, click Edit  to modify the ETL configuration settings.
4. On the Run configuration tab, ensure that the Execute in simulation mode option is set to Yes, and click Save.
5. Click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
6. On the ETL tasks page, check the ETL run status in the Last exit column.
   OK Indicates that the ETL ran without any error. You are ready to run the ETL in the production mode.
7.  If the ETL run status is Warning, Error, or Failed:
   1. On the ETL tasks page, clickin the last column of the ETL name row.
   2. Check the log and reconfigure the ETL if required.
   3. Run the ETL again.
   4. Repeat these steps until the ETL run status changes to OK.

B. To run the ETL in the production mode

You can run the ETL manually when required or schedule it to run at a specified time.

To run the ETL manually

1. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
2. In the Run configurations table, click Edit  to modify the ETL configuration settings. The Edit run configuration page is displayed.
3. On the Run configuration tab, select No for the Execute in simulation mode option, and click Save.
4. To run the ETL immediately, click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
   When the ETL runs, it collects data from the source and transfers it to the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization database.

To schedule the ETL run in the production mode

By default, the ETL is scheduled to run daily. You can customize this schedule by changing the frequency and period of running the ETL.

To configure the ETL run schedule:

1. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL, and click Edit task. The ETL details are displayed.
   
2. On the Edit task page, do the following, and click Save:
   • Specify a unique name and description for the ETL task.
   • In the Maximum execution time before warning field, specify the duration for which the ETL must run before generating warnings or alerts, if any.
   • Select a predefined or custom frequency for starting the ETL run. The default selection is Predefined.
   • Select the task group to which you want to assign the ETL task.
3. Click Schedule. A message confirming the scheduling job submission is displayed.
   When the ETL runs as scheduled, it collects data from the source and transfers it to the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization database.

Verify that the ETL ran successfully and check whether the AWS data is refreshed in the Workspace.

To verify whether the ETL ran successfully

1. Click Administration > ETL and System Tasks > ETL tasks.
2. In the Last exec time column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the current date and time are displayed.
3. In the Last exit column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the status is OK.
   In case of WARNING or ERROR, click in the last column of the ETL name row to review the log files.

If you see a Warning status in the Last exit column, see the AWS API ETL displays warning message in the ETL logs to troubleshoot the issue.

To verify that the AWS data is refreshed

1. In the Workspace tab, expand (Domain name) > Systems > AWS Cloud > Instances.
2. In the left pane, verify that the hierarchy displays the new and updated AWS instances that you have provisioned in the AWS cloud.
3. Click an AWS virtual machine instance, and click the Metrics tab in the right pane.
4. Check if the Last Activity column in the Configuration metrics and Performance metrics tables displays the current date.

The following image shows sample metrics data. To learn more about these metrics and other related concepts, see Entities-lookup-information-and-metrics-for-AWS-API-ETL.