Explore CloudWatch data in Grafana
In this milestone, you confirm the data source works by running a CloudWatch metrics query in Grafana’s Explore.
In the navigation menu, click Explore.
From the data source dropdown at the top-left, select your CloudWatch data source.
Build a metrics query
In the query editor, with the query mode set to Metrics and the builder view:
- Set Namespace to an AWS service you’re running, such as
AWS/EC2. - Set Metric name to a metric in that namespace, such as
CPUUtilization. - Set Statistic to an aggregation, such as
Average. - Optionally set a Dimension (for example,
InstanceId) to scope the query to a specific resource.
Grafana loads the available namespaces, metrics, and dimensions directly from your AWS account. If the dropdowns are empty, your IAM policy may be missing the cloudwatch:ListMetrics action.
Click Run query to execute the query.
You should see time series data in the results panel. If you see results, your CloudWatch data source is working correctly.
Verify successful data access
After running your query, you should see:
- Time series data displayed as a graph or table
- No authentication or authorization errors
- Namespaces and metrics that match the AWS services in your region
To explore what else the data source can do, refer to the CloudWatch query editor documentation.
Congratulations! You’ve connected Amazon CloudWatch to Grafana Cloud and verified that data is accessible.