AWS Step Functions monitoring

How-to guide
5-min read
Published Jul 06, 2020

Dynatrace ingests metrics for multiple preselected namespaces, including AWS Step Functions. You can view metrics for each service instance, split metrics into multiple dimensions, and create custom charts that you can pin to your dashboards.

Prerequisites

To enable monitoring for this service, you need

ActiveGate version 1.197+

For Dynatrace SaaS deployments, you need an Environment ActiveGate or a Multi-environment ActiveGate.

For role-based access in SaaS deployment, you need an Environment ActiveGate installed on an Amazon EC2 host.

Dynatrace version 1.200+
An updated AWS monitoring policy to include the additional AWS services.

To update the AWS IAM policy, use the JSON below, containing the monitoring policy (permissions) for all supporting services.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "acm-pca:ListCertificateAuthorities",
        "apigateway:GET",
        "apprunner:ListServices",
        "appstream:DescribeFleets",
        "appsync:ListGraphqlApis",
        "athena:ListWorkGroups",
        "autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups",
        "cloudformation:ListStackResources",
        "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
        "cloudhsm:DescribeClusters",
        "cloudsearch:DescribeDomains",
        "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
        "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
        "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
        "codebuild:ListProjects",
        "datasync:ListTasks",
        "dax:DescribeClusters",
        "directconnect:DescribeConnections",
        "dms:DescribeReplicationInstances",
        "dynamodb:ListTables",
        "dynamodb:ListTagsOfResource",
        "ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
        "ec2:DescribeInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeNatGateways",
        "ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequests",
        "ec2:DescribeTransitGateways",
        "ec2:DescribeVolumes",
        "ec2:DescribeVpnConnections",
        "ecs:ListClusters",
        "eks:ListClusters",
        "elasticache:DescribeCacheClusters",
        "elasticbeanstalk:DescribeEnvironmentResources",
        "elasticbeanstalk:DescribeEnvironments",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystems",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeInstanceHealth",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeListeners",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeRules",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTags",
        "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetHealth",
        "elasticmapreduce:ListClusters",
        "elastictranscoder:ListPipelines",
        "es:ListDomainNames",
        "events:ListEventBuses",
        "firehose:ListDeliveryStreams",
        "fsx:DescribeFileSystems",
        "gamelift:ListFleets",
        "glue:GetJobs",
        "inspector:ListAssessmentTemplates",
        "kafka:ListClusters",
        "kinesis:ListStreams",
        "kinesisanalytics:ListApplications",
        "kinesisvideo:ListStreams",
        "lambda:ListFunctions",
        "lambda:ListTags",
        "lex:GetBots",
        "logs:DescribeLogGroups",
        "mediaconnect:ListFlows",
        "mediaconvert:DescribeEndpoints",
        "mediapackage-vod:ListPackagingConfigurations",
        "mediapackage:ListChannels",
        "mediatailor:ListPlaybackConfigurations",
        "opsworks:DescribeStacks",
        "qldb:ListLedgers",
        "rds:DescribeDBClusters",
        "rds:DescribeDBInstances",
        "rds:DescribeEvents",
        "rds:ListTagsForResource",
        "redshift:DescribeClusters",
        "robomaker:ListSimulationJobs",
        "route53:ListHostedZones",
        "route53resolver:ListResolverEndpoints",
        "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
        "sagemaker:ListEndpoints",
        "sns:ListTopics",
        "sqs:ListQueues",
        "storagegateway:ListGateways",
        "sts:GetCallerIdentity",
        "swf:ListDomains",
        "tag:GetResources",
        "tag:GetTagKeys",
        "transfer:ListServers",
        "workmail:ListOrganizations",
        "workspaces:DescribeWorkspaces"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

If you don't want to add permissions to all services, and just select permissions for certain services, consult the table below. The table contains a set of permissions that are required for All AWS cloud services and, for each supporting service, a list of optional permissions specific to that service.

Permissions required for AWS monitoring integration:

"cloudwatch:GetMetricData"
"cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics"
"cloudwatch:ListMetrics"
"sts:GetCallerIdentity"
"tag:GetResources"
"tag:GetTagKeys"
"ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones"

Name	Permissions
All monitored Amazon services required	`cloudwatch:GetMetricData`, `cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics`, `cloudwatch:ListMetrics`, `sts:GetCallerIdentity`, `tag:GetResources`, `tag:GetTagKeys`, `ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones`
AWS Certificate Manager Private Certificate Authority	`acm-pca:ListCertificateAuthorities`
Amazon MQ
Amazon API Gateway	`apigateway:GET`
AWS App Runner	`apprunner:ListServices`
Amazon AppStream	`appstream:DescribeFleets`
AWS AppSync	`appsync:ListGraphqlApis`
Amazon Athena	`athena:ListWorkGroups`
Amazon Aurora	`rds:DescribeDBClusters`
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling	`autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups`
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling (built-in)	`autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups`
AWS Billing
Amazon Keyspaces
AWS Chatbot
Amazon CloudFront	`cloudfront:ListDistributions`
AWS CloudHSM	`cloudhsm:DescribeClusters`
Amazon CloudSearch	`cloudsearch:DescribeDomains`
AWS CodeBuild	`codebuild:ListProjects`
Amazon Cognito
Amazon Connect
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)	`eks:ListClusters`
AWS DataSync	`datasync:ListTasks`
Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX)	`dax:DescribeClusters`
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)	`dms:DescribeReplicationInstances`
Amazon DocumentDB	`rds:DescribeDBClusters`
AWS Direct Connect	`directconnect:DescribeConnections`
Amazon DynamoDB	`dynamodb:ListTables`
Amazon DynamoDB (built-in)	`dynamodb:ListTables`, `dynamodb:ListTagsOfResource`
Amazon EBS	`ec2:DescribeVolumes`
Amazon EBS (built-in)	`ec2:DescribeVolumes`
Amazon EC2 API
Amazon EC2 (built-in)	`ec2:DescribeInstances`
Amazon EC2 Spot Fleet	`ec2:DescribeSpotFleetRequests`
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)	`ecs:ListClusters`
Amazon ECS Container Insights	`ecs:ListClusters`
Amazon ElastiCache (EC)	`elasticache:DescribeCacheClusters`
AWS Elastic Beanstalk	`elasticbeanstalk:DescribeEnvironments`
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)	`elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystems`
Amazon Elastic Inference
Amazon Elastic Map Reduce (EMR)	`elasticmapreduce:ListClusters`
Amazon Elasticsearch Service (ES)	`es:ListDomainNames`
Amazon Elastic Transcoder	`elastictranscoder:ListPipelines`
Amazon Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) (built-in)	`elasticloadbalancing:DescribeInstanceHealth`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeListeners`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeRules`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTags`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetHealth`
Amazon EventBridge	`events:ListEventBuses`
Amazon FSx	`fsx:DescribeFileSystems`
Amazon GameLift	`gamelift:ListFleets`
AWS Glue	`glue:GetJobs`
Amazon Inspector	`inspector:ListAssessmentTemplates`
AWS Internet of Things (IoT)
AWS IoT Analytics
Amazon Managed Streaming for Kafka	`kafka:ListClusters`
Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics	`kinesisanalytics:ListApplications`
Amazon Data Firehose	`firehose:ListDeliveryStreams`
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams	`kinesis:ListStreams`
Amazon Kinesis Video Streams	`kinesisvideo:ListStreams`
AWS Lambda	`lambda:ListFunctions`
AWS Lambda (built-in)	`lambda:ListFunctions`, `lambda:ListTags`
Amazon Lex	`lex:GetBots`
Amazon Application and Network Load Balancer (built-in)	`elasticloadbalancing:DescribeInstanceHealth`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeListeners`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeRules`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTags`, `elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetHealth`
Amazon CloudWatch Logs	`logs:DescribeLogGroups`
AWS Elemental MediaConnect	`mediaconnect:ListFlows`
AWS Elemental MediaConvert	`mediaconvert:DescribeEndpoints`
AWS Elemental MediaPackage Live	`mediapackage:ListChannels`
AWS Elemental MediaPackage Video on Demand	`mediapackage-vod:ListPackagingConfigurations`
AWS Elemental MediaTailor	`mediatailor:ListPlaybackConfigurations`
Amazon VPC NAT Gateways	`ec2:DescribeNatGateways`
Amazon Neptune	`rds:DescribeDBClusters`
AWS OpsWorks	`opsworks:DescribeStacks`
Amazon Polly
Amazon QLDB	`qldb:ListLedgers`
Amazon RDS	`rds:DescribeDBInstances`
Amazon RDS (built-in)	`rds:DescribeDBInstances`, `rds:DescribeEvents`, `rds:ListTagsForResource`
Amazon Redshift	`redshift:DescribeClusters`
Amazon Rekognition
AWS RoboMaker	`robomaker:ListSimulationJobs`
Amazon Route 53	`route53:ListHostedZones`
Amazon Route 53 Resolver	`route53resolver:ListResolverEndpoints`
Amazon S3	`s3:ListAllMyBuckets`
Amazon S3 (built-in)	`s3:ListAllMyBuckets`
Amazon SageMaker Batch Transform Jobs
Amazon SageMaker Endpoint Instances	`sagemaker:ListEndpoints`
Amazon SageMaker Endpoints	`sagemaker:ListEndpoints`
Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth
Amazon SageMaker Processing Jobs
Amazon SageMaker Training Jobs
AWS Service Catalog
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)	`sns:ListTopics`
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)	`sqs:ListQueues`
AWS Systems Manager - Run Command
AWS Step Functions
AWS Storage Gateway	`storagegateway:ListGateways`
Amazon SWF	`swf:ListDomains`
Amazon Textract
AWS IoT Things Graph
AWS Transfer Family	`transfer:ListServers`
AWS Transit Gateway	`ec2:DescribeTransitGateways`
Amazon Translate
AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS API Usage
AWS Site-to-Site VPN	`ec2:DescribeVpnConnections`
AWS WAF Classic
AWS WAF
Amazon WorkMail	`workmail:ListOrganizations`
Amazon WorkSpaces	`workspaces:DescribeWorkspaces`

Example of JSON policy for one single service.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
          {
                  "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
                  "Effect": "Allow",
                  "Action": [
                          "apigateway:GET",
                          "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
                          "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
                          "cloudwatch:ListMetrics",
                          "sts:GetCallerIdentity",
                          "tag:GetResources",
                          "tag:GetTagKeys",
                          "ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones"
                  ],
                  "Resource": "*"
          }
      ]
}

In this example, from the complete list of permissions you need to select

"apigateway:GET" for Amazon API Gateway
"cloudwatch:GetMetricData", "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics", "cloudwatch:ListMetrics", "sts:GetCallerIdentity", "tag:GetResources", "tag:GetTagKeys", and "ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones" for All AWS cloud services.

Enable monitoring

To learn how to enable service monitoring, see Enable service monitoring.

View service metrics

You can view the service metrics in your Dynatrace environment either on the custom device overview page or on your Dashboards page.

View metrics on the custom device overview page

To access the custom device overview page

Go to Technologies & Processes Classic.
Filter by service name and select the relevant custom device group.
Once you select the custom device group, you're on the custom device group overview page.
The custom device group overview page lists all instances (custom devices) belonging to the group. Select an instance to view the custom device overview page.

View metrics on your dashboard

After you add the service to monitoring, a preset dashboard containing all recommended metrics is automatically listed on your Dashboards page. To look for specific dashboards, filter by Preset and then by Name.

For existing monitored services, you might need to resave your credentials for the preset dashboard to appear on the Dashboards page. To resave your credentials, go to Settings > Cloud and virtualization > AWS, select the desired AWS instance, and then select Save.

You can't make changes on a preset dashboard directly, but you can clone and edit it. To clone a dashboard, open the browse menu (…) and select Clone.

To remove a dashboard from the dashboards page, you can hide it. To hide a dashboard, open the browse menu (…) and select Hide.

Hiding a dashboard doesn't affect other users.

To check the availability of preset dashboards for each AWS service, see the list below.

AWS service	Preset dashboard
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling (built-in)
AWS Lambda (built-in)
Amazon Application and Network Load Balancer (built-in)
Amazon DynamoDB (built-in)
Amazon EBS (built-in)
Amazon EC2 (built-in)
Amazon Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) (built-in)
Amazon RDS (built-in)
Amazon S3 (built-in)
AWS Certificate Manager Private Certificate Authority
All monitored Amazon services
Amazon API Gateway
AWS App Runner
Amazon AppStream
AWS AppSync
Amazon Athena
Amazon Aurora
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
AWS Billing
Amazon Keyspaces
AWS Chatbot
Amazon CloudFront
AWS CloudHSM
Amazon CloudSearch
AWS CodeBuild
Amazon Cognito
Amazon Connect
AWS DataSync
Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX)
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)
Amazon DocumentDB
AWS Direct Connect
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon EBS
Amazon EC2 Spot Fleet
Amazon EC2 API
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)
Amazon ECS Container Insights
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
Amazon ElastiCache (EC)
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Amazon Elastic Inference
Amazon Elastic Transcoder
Amazon Elastic Map Reduce (EMR)
Amazon Elasticsearch Service (ES)
Amazon EventBridge
Amazon FSx
Amazon GameLift
AWS Glue
Amazon Inspector
AWS Internet of Things (IoT)
AWS IoT Things Graph
AWS IoT Analytics
Amazon Managed Streaming for Kafka
Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics
Amazon Data Firehose
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Amazon Kinesis Video Streams
AWS Lambda
Amazon Lex
Amazon CloudWatch Logs
AWS Elemental MediaTailor
AWS Elemental MediaConnect
AWS Elemental MediaConvert
AWS Elemental MediaPackage Live
AWS Elemental MediaPackage Video on Demand
Amazon MQ
Amazon VPC NAT Gateways
Amazon Neptune
AWS OpsWorks
Amazon Polly
Amazon QLDB
Amazon RDS
Amazon Redshift
Amazon Rekognition
AWS RoboMaker
Amazon Route 53
Amazon Route 53 Resolver
Amazon S3
Amazon SageMaker Batch Transform Jobs
Amazon SageMaker Endpoints
Amazon SageMaker Endpoint Instances
Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth
Amazon SageMaker Processing Jobs
Amazon SageMaker Training Jobs
AWS Service Catalog
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
AWS Systems Manager - Run Command
AWS Step Functions
AWS Storage Gateway
Amazon SWF
Amazon Textract
AWS Transfer Family
AWS Transit Gateway
Amazon Translate
AWS Trusted Advisor
AWS API Usage
AWS Site-to-Site VPN
AWS WAF Classic
AWS WAF
Amazon WorkMail
Amazon WorkSpaces

Available metrics

Name	Description	Unit	Statistics	Dimensions
ActivitiesFailed	The number of failed activities	Count	Sum	Region, ActivityArn
ActivitiesHeartbeatTimedOut	The number of activities that time out due to a heartbeat timeout	Count	Sum	Region, ActivityArn
ActivitiesScheduled	The number of scheduled activities	Count	Sum	Region, ActivityArn
ActivitiesStarted	The number of started activities	Count	Sum	Region, ActivityArn
ActivitiesSucceeded	The number of successfully completed activities	Count	Sum	Region, ActivityArn
ActivitiesTimedOut	The number of activities that time out on close	Count	Sum	Region, ActivityArn
ActivityRunTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the activity starts and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, ActivityArn
ActivityScheduleTime	The interval, in milliseconds, for which the activity stays in the schedule state	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, ActivityArn
ActivityTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the activity is scheduled and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, ActivityArn
ConsumedCapacity	The count of requests per second	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceMetric
ConsumedCapacity		Count	Sum	Region, APIName
ExecutionThrottled	The number of StateEntered events and retries that have been throttled	Count	Sum	Region, StateMachineArn
ExecutionTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the execution starts and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, StateMachineArn
ExecutionsAborted	The number of aborted or terminated executions	Count	Sum	Region, StateMachineArn
ExecutionsFailed	The number of failed executions	Count	Sum	Region, StateMachineArn
ExecutionsStarted	The number of started executions	Count	Sum	Region, StateMachineArn
ExecutionsSucceeded	The number of successfully completed executions	Count	Sum	Region, StateMachineArn
ExecutionsTimedOut	The number of executions that time out for any reason	Count	Sum	Region, StateMachineArn
LambdaFunctionRunTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the Lambda function starts and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionScheduleTime	The interval, in milliseconds, for which the Lambda function stays in the schedule state	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the Lambda function is scheduled and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionsFailed	The number of failed Lambda functions	Count	Sum	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionsScheduled	The number of scheduled Lambda functions	Count	Sum	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionsStarted	The number of started Lambda functions	Count	Sum	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionsSucceeded	The number of successfully completed Lambda functions	Count	Sum	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
LambdaFunctionsTimedOut	The number of Lambda functions that time out on close	Count	Sum	Region, LambdaFunctionArn
ProvisionedBucketSize	The count of available requests per second	Count	Multi	Region, ServiceMetric
ProvisionedBucketSize		Count	Multi	Region, APIName
ProvisionedRefillRate	The count of requests per second that are allowed into the bucket	Count	Multi	Region, ServiceMetric
ProvisionedRefillRate		Count	Multi	Region, APIName
ServiceIntegrationRunTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the service task starts and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationScheduleTime	The interval, in milliseconds, for which the service task stays in the schedule state	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationTime	The interval, in milliseconds, between the time the service task is scheduled and the time it closes	Milliseconds	Multi	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationsFailed	The number of failed service tasks	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationsScheduled	The number of scheduled service tasks.	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationsStarted	The number of started service tasks	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationsSucceeded	The number of successfully completed service tasks	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ServiceIntegrationsTimedOut	The number of service tasks that time out on close	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceIntegrationResourceArn
ThrottledEvents	The count of requests that have been throttled	Count	Sum	Region, ServiceMetric
ThrottledEvents		Count	Sum	Region, APIName

Limitations

Dynatrace gathers metrics for AWS Step Functions at the custom device group level instead of the custom device level (metrics are service-wide).