Enhancing observability in Amazon ECS to gain actionable insights (SVS328)

Here is a summary of the key takeaways from the video transcription, formatted in Markdown with sections for better readability:

Introduction

• The presenters, Steven David and Lucy Haron, introduced themselves and the agenda for the session.
• They discussed the benefits of using Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) for building workloads and applications, such as portability, consistency, and automation.

The Importance of Observability

• Observability is crucial when issues arise with your containers, as things can break, and you need the right tools and capabilities to troubleshoot and fix the problems.
• Observability goes beyond just troubleshooting and fixing issues - it also includes understanding the end-user experience and the costs associated with running your application on ECS.

Real-Life Scenarios and Demos

1. Debugging Performance Issues:

   • The presenters demonstrated how to use Container Insights and Application Signals to investigate latency issues in the "Watch Store" sample application.
   • They were able to narrow down the problem to the cart service and provide the development team with the necessary information to investigate and fix the issue.

2. Troubleshooting Critical Errors:

   • In this scenario, the application was experiencing critical errors, and the presenters used logging insights and deployment information to identify the root cause and suggest a solution.

3. Dealing with Intermittent Errors:

   • The presenters showed how to use Synthetics Canaries to detect intermittent issues in the application, and then used Application Signals and metrics to further investigate and identify the problematic component.

4. Gaining Actionable Cost Insights:

   • The presenters demonstrated how to set up cost allocation for ECS, and then how to use Amazon QuickSight to create dashboards and visualizations to understand the cost breakdown of your ECS workloads.

Resources and Next Steps

The presenters provided the following resources and next steps for the audience:

1. ECS Observability Workshop: A free workshop to help you get started with observability for your ECS workloads.
2. Best Practices: Resources to learn about best practices for setting up alarms, metrics, and logs for your ECS applications.
3. Infrastructure as Code Templates: Pre-built AWS CDK and Terraform templates to accelerate your observability setup.
4. E-learning Resources: Additional e-learning materials on the Skill Builder platform to learn more about ECS observability.

The presenters encouraged the audience to provide feedback and apply the knowledge they learned in the session to their day-to-day work.