Highlights:

  • The myApplications interface exhibits the total costs incurred by an application since the beginning of a specific month, along with details on whether these costs have increased or decreased compared to the previous month.
  • The tool monitors various operational metrics for each workload, presenting information on the application’s availability, the number of received requests, and the latency in processing those requests.

Amazon Web Services unveils myApplications, a novel tool that improves the cost-effective management of cloud workloads for customers.

The tool also extends its utility to other use cases. AWS states that administrators can utilize myApplications to monitor hardware usage and conduct cybersecurity vulnerability scans on workloads. Moreover, the tool presents information on potential technical issues through another newly introduced feature called Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals, which premiered recently.

Increasing Cloud Efficiency

One of the primarily intended use cases for myApplications is assisting customers in monitoring the costs linked to their cloud workloads. Optimizing cloud costs took center stage during Amazon.com Inc. Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels’ keynote at AWS re:Invent 2023, where the introduction of myApplications was announced. Vogels introduced a set of seven best practices, named “The Frugal Architect,” which companies can adopt to prevent unnecessary cloud expenses.

The myApplication interface showcases a comprehensive list of all the workloads within a company’s AWS environment. Upon selecting a workload, administrators can access a dashboard that visualizes the hardware resources and AWS services it utilizes, along with their respective costs. For instance, the dashboard may reveal that the monthly cost of the application is primarily attributed to the Amazon RDS database, constituting 20% of the total expenses.

Administrators also have access to more comprehensive spending data. The myApplications interface exhibits the total costs incurred by an application since the beginning of a specific month, along with details on whether these costs have increased or decreased compared to the previous month. According to AWS, this data aids administrators in identifying unexpected increases in spending that may necessitate troubleshooting.

“The Cost and usage widget visualizes your AWS resource costs and usage from AWS Cost Explorer, including the application’s current and forecasted month-end costs, top five billed services, and a monthly application resource cost trend chart,” AWS principal developer advocate Channy Yun elaborated on this in a blog post. “You can monitor spend, look for anomalies, and click to take action where needed.”

The tool will likely attract interest from numerous AWS customers who have actively reduced cloud costs in recent months to counter macroeconomic pressures.
In an exclusive interview before re:Invent, AWS Chief Executive Adam Selipsky mentioned that customers’ cost optimization efforts are almost finalized. He noted that the focus is shifting towards new cloud workloads, such as generative artificial intelligence models.

Streamlined Application Instrumentation

Tracking costs is not the sole task the new myApplications tool aims to simplify. It also enables organizations to monitor various other aspects of their cloud infrastructure.

According to AWS, a built-in cybersecurity dashboard indicates whether a company’s workloads have insecure configuration settings. The dashboard gathers data on configuration issues using an existing service called the AWS Security Hub. Another dashboard presents information on application health and performance, leveraging CloudWatch Application Signals, a tool Vogels introduced during the recent keynote.

It must be equipped with an instrumentation code to gather diagnostic data from an application. Implementing this code can be time-consuming, especially within intricate container workloads with numerous software modules. AWS states that CloudWatch Application Signals automates the process, enabling developers to establish an application monitoring workflow with just a few clicks.

The tool monitors various operational metrics for each workload, presenting information on the application’s availability, the number of received requests, and the latency in processing those requests. Administrators can configure the tool to monitor specific events, such as when a workload’s latency surpasses a predefined threshold.

A visual interface panel, the Service Map, showcases the individual software modules comprising a workload. It visually represents dependencies, illustrating instances where one application component relies on another for functionality. If administrators pinpoint a technical issue in one of the components, they can utilize the tool to access detailed technical data about the incident.

“Application Signals automatically correlates telemetry across metrics, traces, logs, real user monitoring, and synthetic monitoring to speed up troubleshooting and reduce application disruption,” AWS Senior Developer Advocate Veliswa Boya provided insights into the new myApplications tool in a blog post.

CloudWatch Application Signals is now available in preview as part of AWS’ CloudWatch observability service. The myApplications tool is now generally available through the AWS Management Console.