EKS Java Application Monitoring

Overview

Instrument Java/JVM applications running on Amazon EKS with CloudWatch Application Signals for automatic service map generation, latency tracking, and error rate monitoring — with zero code changes.

Application Signals uses the OpenTelemetry Java agent auto-instrumentation to capture:

• HTTP request/response metrics (latency, error rate, throughput)
• Downstream dependency calls (databases, other services, AWS SDKs)
• Distributed traces correlated with metrics
• JVM runtime metrics (heap, GC, threads)

Prerequisites

• Amazon EKS cluster (v1.27+)
• Java application deployed as a Kubernetes Deployment
• CloudWatch agent with Application Signals enabled
• ADOT add-on or OpenTelemetry Operator installed
• IAM permissions for CloudWatch and X-Ray

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    EKS Cluster                       │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │           Application Pod                     │  │
│  │  ┌─────────────┐    ┌────────────────────┐   │  │
│  │  │ Java App    │    │ OTel Java Agent     │   │  │
│  │  │             │◄───│ (auto-instrument)   │   │  │
│  │  └─────────────┘    └─────────┬──────────┘   │  │
│  └───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┘  │
│                                  │                   │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────▼───────────────┐  │
│  │         CloudWatch Agent (DaemonSet)          │  │
│  └───────────────────────────────┬───────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┘
                                   │
                    ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
                    ▼              ▼              ▼
           ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌────────────┐
           │ CloudWatch   │ │  X-Ray   │ │ Application│
           │ Metrics      │ │  Traces  │ │ Signals    │
           └──────────────┘ └──────────┘ └────────────┘

Deploy

Step 1: Enable the ADOT add-on

aws eks create-addon \
  --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --addon-name adot \
  --addon-version v0.92.1-eksbuild.1

Step 2: Annotate your application namespace

apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: my-app
  labels:
    aws-observability: enabled

Step 3: Add instrumentation annotation to your Deployment

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: my-java-app
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-java: "true"
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: my-java-app:latest

Step 4: Deploy CloudWatch agent

aws eks create-addon \
  --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --addon-name amazon-cloudwatch-observability

Validate

1. Check auto-instrumentation is injected:

   kubectl get pods -n my-app -o jsonpath='{.items[*].spec.initContainers[*].name}'
   # Should show: opentelemetry-auto-instrumentation

2. Generate traffic and check Application Signals: Navigate to CloudWatch > Application Signals > Services.

3. Verify traces in X-Ray: Navigate to CloudWatch > X-Ray traces > Trace map.

Troubleshoot

Symptom	Likely Cause	Fix
No init container injected	Instrumentation CR missing	Verify kubectl get instrumentation -A
App crashes after instrumentation	Agent compatibility	Check Java version >= 8, try pinning agent version
Traces but no Application Signals	CloudWatch agent not forwarding	Check CW agent config and IAM role
High latency after instrumentation	Sampling too aggressive	Adjust sampling rate in collector config

Related Solutions

• EKS Infrastructure Monitoring — Add infrastructure-level visibility
• Lambda Monitoring — Trace requests from EKS to Lambda