CloudLens for EBS is a feature provided by Alibaba Cloud that is used to analyze data and monitor the performance of Elastic Block Storage (EBS) resources. You can use CloudLens for EBS to obtain the information and performance monitoring data of EBS resources in the cloud, which helps you efficiently manage EBS resources and analyze business fluctuations and resource consumption.
Introduction
CloudLens for EBS allows you to monitor EBS resources. CloudLens for EBS provides the following features:
Resource overview
After you enable CloudLens for EBS, the Resource Overview page in the EBS console displays basic information of EBS resources in the previous day in the current Alibaba Cloud account, such as the disk quantity, disk capacity, disk distribution by region, and disk distribution by disk category. You can view the usage of disk resources on the Resource Overview page.
On the Disk Analysis page in the EBS console, you can use the data collection feature to collect and store near real-time performance monitoring data of disks and display the data.
If CloudLens for EBS detects a risk on a disk, such as when the disk reaches the performance limits or when no snapshots are created for the disk to back up disk data, CloudLens for EBS reports a risk event. This way, you can handle the risk at the earliest opportunity to ensure disk data security and that the disk runs as expected.
For information about the types of risk events that can be reported by CloudLens for EBS, descriptions of risk events, and suggestions on how to handle different risk events, see Disk events.
The application management feature of CloudLens for EBS generates reports on the monitoring data of disks and periodically notifies you by email or internal message. This way, you can comprehensively analyze the monitoring data of disks, such as the disk resource quantity, disk capacity, disk distribution by region, and disk distribution by disk category, properly plan resource allocation, and optimize costs.
Benefits
Near real-time monitoring
CloudLens for EBS provides near real-time monitoring of disk performance. CloudLens for EBS can monitor finer-grained changes in disk performance compared with the minute-level monitoring provided by Elastic Compute Service (ECS).
Multidimensional metrics
Unlike ECS, which provides only basic data information of each disk, CloudLens for EBS aggregates multiple dimensions of information, including the number of disks, disk capacity, proportion of disks for which snapshots are created, proportion of encrypted disks, proportions of disks by disk category, proportions of disks by billing method, and disk performance metrics such as read/write IOPS and throughput.
Automated data collection
CloudLens for EBS provides the automated data collection feature to help you efficiently manage EBS resources.
Billing
You can use the features of CloudLens for EBS free of charge.
Scenarios
CloudLens for EBS is suitable for individuals or enterprise users who want to monitor storage performance across multiple dimensions and require high data security. Sample scenarios:
E-commerce or ticketing websites experience fluctuations in page views. Page view fluctuations may cause disk traffic to reach the upper limit and result in server jitter. Basic disk monitoring metrics and features do not meet your business requirements, and you want to collect comprehensive performance metrics. In this scenario, you can use CloudLens for EBS to collect comprehensive storage performance metrics together with storage resource data collected by Simple Log Service. This way, you can identify and resolve disk performance issues.
You are new to cloud computing and unfamiliar with how to manage cloud resources. You accidentally initialize specific data disks on which important data is stored and did not create snapshots for the disks. No snapshots can be used to roll back the disks, and the data is lost. In this scenario, you can use CloudLens for EBS to obtain the data of disks for which snapshots are created in your Alibaba Cloud account. Then, you can create snapshots for disks to prevent data loss based on the information provided by CloudLens for EBS.
Considerations
When you use CloudLens for EBS, take note of the following items:
The first time you enable CloudLens for EBS, the system requires one day to prepare data. The near real-time performance monitoring data of disks is collected from the point in time when the data preparation is complete and displayed on the Near Real-time Monitoring tab of the Disk Analysis page for each disk.
When a disk is being initialized, CloudLens for EBS monitors the disk as expected.
If a disk is attached to a subscription ECS instance that expired but is not released, CloudLens for EBS monitors the disk as expected.
If a disk is released, you cannot use CloudLens for EBS to view the historical monitoring data of the disk.
CloudLens for EBS cannot monitor disks for which multi-attach is enabled.