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Reducing CloudWatch cost

GetMetricData​

Typically GetMetricData is caused by calls from 3rd party Observability tools and/or cloud financial tools using the CloudWatch Metrics in their platform.

  • Consider reducing the frequency with which the 3rd party tool is making requests. For example, reducing frequency from 1 min to 5 mins should result in a 1/5 (20%) of the cost.
  • To identify the trend, consider turning off any data collection from 3rd party tools for a short while.

CloudWatch Logs​

  • Find the top contributors using this knowledge center document.
  • Reduce the logging level of top contributors unless deemed necessary.
  • Find out if you are using 3rd party tooling for logging in addition to Cloud Watch.
  • VPC Flow Log costs can add up quick if you have enabled it on every VPC and has a lot of traffic. If you still need it, consider delivering it to Amazon S3.
  • See if logging is necessary on all AWS Lambda functions. If it’s not, deny “logs:PutLogEvents” permissions in the Lambda role.
  • CloudTrail logs are often a top contributor. Sending them to Amazon S3 and using Amazon Athena to query and Amazon EventBridge for alarms/notifications is cheaper.

Refer this knowledge center article for further details.