terraform-aws-observability-accelerator/examples/existing-cluster-nginx

Monitor NGINX applications running on Amazon EKS

This example demonstrates how to use the AWS Observability Accelerator Terraform modules to monitor EKS infrastructure and NGINX workloads. The current example deploys the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry Operator for Amazon EKS with its requirements and make use of an existing Amazon Managed Grafana workspace. It creates a new Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus workspace unless provided with an existing one to reuse.

Since v2.x releases, it uses the EKS monitoring module to provide an existing EKS cluster with an OpenTelemetry collector, curated Grafana dashboards, Prometheus alerting and recording rules with multiple configuration options on the cluster infrastructure. You will gain both visibility on the cluster and NGINX based applications.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have the following tools installed locally:

1. aws cli
2. kubectl
3. terraform

Setup

This example uses a local terraform state. If you need states to be saved remotely, on Amazon S3 for example, visit the terraform remote states documentation

1. Clone the repo using the command below

git clone https://github.com/aws-observability/terraform-aws-observability-accelerator.git

2. Initialize terraform

cd examples/existing-cluster-nginx
terraform init

3. Amazon EKS Cluster

To run this example, you need to provide your EKS cluster name. If you don't have a cluster ready, visit this example first to create a new one.

Add your cluster name for eks_cluster_id="..." to the terraform.tfvars or use an environment variable export TF_VAR_eks_cluster_id=xxx.

4. Amazon Managed Grafana workspace

To run this example you need an Amazon Managed Grafana workspace. If you have an existing workspace, create an environment variable export TF_VAR_managed_grafana_workspace_id=g-xxx.

To create a new one, visit this example.

In the URL https://g-xyz.grafana-workspace.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com, the workspace ID would be g-xyz

5. Grafana API Key

Amazon Managed Service for Grafana provides a control plane API for generating Grafana API keys. We will provide to Terraform a short lived API key to run the apply or destroy command. Ensure you have necessary IAM permissions (CreateWorkspaceApiKey, DeleteWorkspaceApiKey)

export TF_VAR_grafana_api_key=`aws grafana create-workspace-api-key --key-name "observability-accelerator-$(date +%s)" --key-role ADMIN --seconds-to-live 1200 --workspace-id $TF_VAR_managed_grafana_workspace_id --query key --output text`

Deploy

terraform apply -var-file=terraform.tfvars

or if you had setup environment variables, run

terraform apply

Additional configuration

For the purpose of the example, we have provided default values for some of the variables.

1. AWS Region

Specify the AWS Region where the resources will be deployed. Edit the terraform.tfvars file and modify aws_region="...". You can also use environement variables export TF_VAR_aws_region=xxx.

2. Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus workspace

If you have an existing workspace, add managed_prometheus_workspace_id=ws-xxx or use an environment variable export TF_VAR_managed_prometheus_workspace_id=ws-xxx.

Visualization

1. Prometheus datasource on Grafana

Make sure to open the link in the output. After a successful deployment, this will open the Prometheus datasource configuration on Grafana. Click Save & test and you should see a notification confirming that the Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus workspace is ready to be used on Grafana.

terraform output grafana_prometheus_datasource_test

2. Grafana dashboards

Go to the Dashboards panel of your Grafana workspace. You should see a list of dashboards under the Observability Accelerator Dashboards

Open the NGINX dashboard and you should be able to view its visualization

2. Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus rules and alerts

Open the Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus console and view the details of your workspace. Under the Rules management tab, you should find new rules deployed.

To setup your alert receiver, with Amazon SNS, follow this documentation

Deploy an example application to visualize metrics

In this section we will deploy sample application and extract metrics using AWS OpenTelemetry collector

1. Add the helm incubator repo:

helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx

2. Enter the following command to create a new namespace:

kubectl create namespace nginx-ingress-sample

3. Enter the following commands to install NGINX:

helm install my-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \
--namespace nginx-ingress-sample \
--set controller.metrics.enabled=true \
--set-string controller.metrics.service.annotations."prometheus\.io/port"="10254" \
--set-string controller.metrics.service.annotations."prometheus\.io/scrape"="true"

4. Set an EXTERNAL-IP variable to the value of the EXTERNAL-IP column in the row of the NGINX ingress controller.

EXTERNAL_IP=your-nginx-controller-external-ip

5. Start some sample NGINX traffic by entering the following command.

SAMPLE_TRAFFIC_NAMESPACE=nginx-sample-traffic
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws-samples/amazon-cloudwatch-container-insights/master/k8s-deployment-manifest-templates/deployment-mode/service/cwagent-prometheus/sample_traffic/nginx-traffic/nginx-traffic-sample.yaml |
sed "s/{{external_ip}}/$EXTERNAL_IP/g" |
sed "s/{{namespace}}/$SAMPLE_TRAFFIC_NAMESPACE/g" |
kubectl apply -f -

4. Verify if the application is running

kubectl get pods -n nginx-ingress-sample

Visualize the application's dashboard

Log back into your Managed Grafana Workspace and navigate to the dashboard side panel, click on Observability Accelerator Dashboards Folder and open the NGINX Dashboard.

Destroy

To teardown and remove the resources created in this example:

terraform destroy

Advanced configuration

1. Cross-region Amazon Managed Prometheus workspace

If your existing Amazon Managed Prometheus workspace is in another AWS Region, add this managed_prometheus_region=xxx and managed_prometheus_workspace_id=ws-xxx.

2. Cross-region Amazon Managed Grafana workspace

If your existing Amazon Managed Prometheus workspace is in another AWS Region, add this managed_prometheus_region=xxx and managed_prometheus_workspace_id=ws-xxx.

Requirements

Name	Version
terraform	>= 1.1.0
aws	>= 4.0.0
helm	>= 2.4.1
kubectl	>= 1.14
kubernetes	>= 2.10

Providers

Name	Version
aws	>= 4.0.0

Modules

Name	Source	Version
aws_observability_accelerator	../../	n/a
eks_monitoring	../../modules/eks-monitoring	n/a

Resources

Name	Type
aws_eks_cluster.this	data source
aws_eks_cluster_auth.this	data source

Inputs

Name	Description	Type	Default	Required
aws_region	AWS Region	string	n/a	yes
eks_cluster_id	EKS Cluster Id	string	n/a	yes
enable_dashboards	Enables or disables curated dashboards	bool	true	no
grafana_api_key	API key for external-secrets to create secrets for grafana-operator	string	n/a	yes
managed_grafana_workspace_id	Amazon Managed Grafana (AMG) workspace ID	string	n/a	yes
managed_prometheus_workspace_id	Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus (AMP) workspace ID	string	""	no

Outputs

Name	Description
aws_region	AWS Region
eks_cluster_id	EKS Cluster Id
eks_cluster_version	EKS Cluster version
managed_prometheus_workspace_endpoint	Amazon Managed Prometheus workspace endpoint
managed_prometheus_workspace_id	Amazon Managed Prometheus workspace ID