# View Direct Connect CloudWatch metrics
<a name="viewing-metrics"></a>

Direct Connect sends the following metrics about your Direct Connect connections. Amazon CloudWatch then aggregates these data points to 1-minute or 5-minute intervals. By default, Direct Connect metric data is written to CloudWatch at 5-minute intervals. 

**Note**  
When monitoring Direct Connect through CloudWatch, you can request metrics at 1-minute intervals. However, the actual update frequency is controlled by CloudWatch. Because CloudWatch controls the interval, Direct Connect can't always guarantee intervals shorter than five minutes.

You can use the following procedures to view the metrics for Direct Connect connections.

**To view metrics using the CloudWatch console**

Metrics are grouped first by the service namespace, and then by the various dimension combinations within each namespace. For more information about using Amazon CloudWatch to view Direct Connect metrics, including adding math functions or prebuilt queries, see [Using Amazon CloudWatch metrics](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/working-with-metrics.html) in the *Amazon CloudWatch User Guide*. 

1. Open the CloudWatch console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Metrics**, and then choose **All metrics**.

1. In the **Metrics** section, choose **DX**. 

1. Choose a **ConnectionId** or **Metric name**, and then choose any of the following to further define the metric:
   + **Add to search** — Adds this metric to your search results.
   + **Search for this only** — Searches only for this metric.
   + **Remove from graph** — Removes this metric from the graph.
   + **Graph this metric only** — Graphs only this metric.
   + **Graph all search results** — Graphs all metrics.
   + **Graph with SQL query** — Opens **Metric Insights -query builder**, allowing you to choose what you want to graph by creating an SQL query. For more information on using Metric Insights, see [Query your metrics with CloudWatch Metrics Insights](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/query_with_cloudwatch-metrics-insights.html) in the *Amazon CloudWatch User Guide*. 

**To view metrics using the Direct Connect console**

1. Open the **Direct Connect** console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/v2/home](https://console.aws.amazon.com/directconnect/v2/home).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Connections**.

1. Select your connection. 

1. Choose the **Monitoring** tab to display the metrics for your connection.

**To view metrics using the AWS CLI**  
At a command prompt, use the following command.

```
aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace "AWS/DX"
```