Application Manager

This section is currently a work-in-progress.

Systems Manager Application Manager helps DevOps engineers investigate and remediate issues with their AWS resources in the context of their applications. Application Manager aggregates operations information from multiple AWS services and Systems Manager capabilities to a single AWS Management Console.

In Application Manager, an application is a logical group of AWS resources that you want to operate as a unit. This logical group can represent different versions of an application, ownership boundaries for operators, or developer environments, to name a few. Application Manager automatically imports metadata about your resources that were created in other AWS services or Systems Manager capabilities. Specifically, Application Manager imports metadata about all of your AWS resources organized into resource groups. Each resource group is listed in the Custom applications category as a unique application. Application Manager also automatically imports metadata about resources that were created by AWS CloudFormation, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), and AWS Launch Wizard.

After you set up and configure AWS services and Systems Manager capabilities, Application Manager displays the following types of information about your resources:

  • Alarms provided by Amazon CloudWatch
  • Compliance information provided by AWS Config and Systems Manager State Manager
  • Kubernetes cluster information provided by Amazon EKS
  • Log data provided by AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch Logs
  • OpsItems provided by Systems Manager OpsCenter
  • Resource details provided by the AWS services that host them.

To help you remediate issues with components or resources, Application Manager also provides runbooks that you can associate with your applications.

In this lab, you will:

  • Set up Application Manager
  • Work with Application Manager

Pre-Requisites

You must complete the following capability lab sections before proceeding with Change Manager:

  1. Lab Setup
  2. State Manager
  3. Resource Groups

If you have not completed these sections, go back and complete the sections listed above before proceeding.

Set up Application Manager

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.

Work with Application Manager

Viewing overview information about an application

The Overview tab displays a summary of Amazon CloudWatch alarms, operational work items (OpsItems), and runbook history. If your application includes subcomponents, you can choose a subcomponent in the Components tree to view its summary of alarms, OpsItems, and runbook history. Choose View all for any card to open the corresponding tab where you can view all alarms, OpsItems, or runbook history.

To open the Overview tab

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.

Viewing application resources

The Resources tab displays the AWS resources in your application. If you choose a top-level component, this page displays all resources for that component and any subcomponents. If you choose a subcomponent, this page shows only the resources assigned to that subcomponent.

To open the Resources tab

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.
  5. Choose the Resources tab.

Viewing compliance information

The Configurations page displays AWS Config resource and configuration rule compliance information. This page also displays AWS Systems Manager State Manager association compliance information. You can choose a resource, a rule, or an association to open the corresponding console for more information. This page displays compliance information from the last 90 days.

To open the Configurations tab

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.
  5. Choose the Configurations tab.

Viewing monitoring information

The Monitoring tab displays Amazon CloudWatch alarm status for resources in an application.

To open the Monitoring tab

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.
  5. Choose the Monitoring tab.

Viewing OpsItems for an application

The OpsItems tab displays operational work items (OpsItems) for resources in the selected application. You can configure AWS Systems Manager OpsCenter to automatically create OpsItems from Amazon CloudWatch alarms and Amazon EventBridge events. You can also manually create OpsItems.

To open the OpsItems tab

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.
  5. Choose the OpsItems tab.

Viewing log groups and log data

The Logs tab displays a list of log groups from Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

To open the Logs tab

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.
  5. Choose the Logs tab.

Working with runbooks

You can remediate issues with AWS resources from Application Manager, a capability of AWS Systems Manager, by using Systems Manager Automation runbooks. When you choose Start runbook from an Application Manager application, the system displays a filtered list of runbooks based on the type of resources in your application. When you choose the runbook you want to start, Systems Manager opens the Execute automation document page.

To start a runbook from Application Manager

  1. Open the AWS Systems Manager console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/.
  2. In the navigation pane, choose Application Manager.
  3. In the Applications section, choose a category. If you want to open an application you created manually in Application Manager, choose Custom applications.
  4. Choose the application in the list. Application Manager opens the Overview tab.
  5. Choose Start runbook. Application Manager opens the Execute automation document page in a new tab. For information about the options in the Execute automation document page, see Working with automations.

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