Monitor Amazon GameLift with Amazon CloudWatch - Amazon GameLift
Metrics dimensionsFleet metricsQueue metricsFlexMatch metricsFleetIQ metrics

Monitor Amazon GameLift with Amazon CloudWatch

You can monitor Amazon GameLift using Amazon CloudWatch, an AWS service that collects raw data and processes it into readable, near real-time metrics. These statistics are kept for 15 months to provide a historical perspective on how your game server hosting with Amazon GameLift is performing. You can set alarms that watch for certain thresholds and send notifications or take actions when those thresholds are met. For more information, see the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.

The following tables list the metrics and dimensions for Amazon GameLift. All metrics that are available in CloudWatch are also available in the Amazon GameLift console, which provides the data as a set of customizable graphs. To access CloudWatch metrics for your games, use the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the CloudWatch API.

If a metric does not have a location, it uses the home location.

Dimensions for Amazon GameLift metrics

Amazon GameLift supports filtering metrics by the following dimensions.

Dimension Description

Location

 Filter metrics for a fleet deployment location. If a metric does not have a location, it uses the home location.

FleetId

Filter metrics for a single fleet. This dimension can be used with all fleet metrics for instances, server processes, game sessions, and player sessions.

MetricGroup

Filter metrics for a collection of fleets. Add a fleet to a metric group by adding the metric group name to the fleet's attributes (see UpdateFleetAttributes()). This dimension can be used with all fleet metrics for instances, server processes, game sessions, and player sessions.

QueueName

Filter metrics for a single queue. This dimension is used with metrics for game session queues only.

ConfigurationName

Filter metrics for a single matchmaking configuration. This dimension is used with metrics for matchmaking configurations.

ConfigurationName-RuleName

Filter metrics for an intersect of a matchmaking configuration and matchmaking rule. This dimension is used with metrics for matchmaking rules only.

InstanceType

Filter metrics for an EC2 instance type designation, such as "c4.large". This dimension is used with metrics for spot instances.

OperatingSystem

Filter metrics for an instance's operating system This dimension is used with metrics for spot instances.

GameServerGroup

 Filter FleetIQ metrics for a game server group.

Amazon GameLift metrics for fleets

The AWS/GameLift namespace includes the following metrics related to activity across a fleet or a group of fleets. Fleets are used with a managed Amazon GameLift solution. The Amazon GameLift service sends metrics to CloudWatch every minute.

Instances

Metric Description

ActiveInstances

Instances with ACTIVE status, which means they are running active server processes. The count includes idle instances and those that are hosting one or more game sessions. This metric measures current total instance capacity. This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

DesiredInstances

Target number of active instances that Amazon GameLift is working to maintain in the fleet. With automatic scaling, this value is determined based on the scaling policies currently in force. Without automatic scaling, this value is set manually. This metric is not available when viewing data for fleet metric groups.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

IdleInstances

Active instances that are currently hosting zero (0) game sessions. This metric measures capacity that is available but unused. This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

MaxInstances

Maximum number of instances that are allowed for the fleet. A fleet's instance maximum determines the capacity ceiling during manual or automatic scaling up. This metric is not available when viewing data for fleet metric groups.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

MinInstances

Minimum number of instances allowed for the fleet. A fleet's instance minimum determines the capacity floor during manual or automatic scaling down. This metric is not available when viewing data for fleet metric groups.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

PercentIdleInstances

Percentage of all active instances that are idle (calculated as IdleInstances / ActiveInstances). This metric can be used for automatic scaling.

Units: Percent

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

RecycledInstances

Number of spot instances that have been recycled and replaced. Amazon GameLift recycles spot instances that are not currently hosting game sessions and have a high probability of interruption.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

InstanceInterruptions

Number of spot instances that have been interrupted.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

CPUUtilization

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. The percentage of physical CPU time that Amazon EC2 uses to run the instance, which includes time spent to run both the user code and Amazon EC2 code. Tools in your operating system can show a different percentage than CloudWatch due to factors such as legacy device simulation, configuration of non-legacy devices, interrupt-heavy workloads, live migration, and live update.

Units: Percent

NetworkIn

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. The number of bytes received on all network interfaces by the instance. This metric identifies the volume of incoming network traffic to an application on a single instance.

Units: Bytes

NetworkOut

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. The number of bytes sent out on all network interfaces by the instance. This metric identifies the volume of outgoing network traffic to an application on a single instance.

Units: Bytes

DiskReadBytes

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. Bytes read from all instance store volumes available to the instance. This metric is used to determine the volume of the data the application reads from the hard disk of the instance. You can use it to determine the speed of the application.

Units: Bytes

DiskWriteBytes

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. Bytes written to all instance store volumes available to the instance. This metric is used to determine the volume of the data the application writes onto the hard disk of the instance. You can use it to determine the speed of the application.

Units: Bytes

DiskReadOps

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. Completed read operations from all instance store volumes available to the instance in a specified period of time. To calculate the average I/O operations per second (IOPS) for the period, divide the total operations in the period by the number of seconds in that period.

Units: Count

DiskWriteOps

EC2 metric. For Amazon GameLift this metric represents hardware performance across all active instances in a fleet location. Completed write operations to all instance store volumes available to the instance in a specified period of time. To calculate the average I/O operations per second (IOPS) for the period, divide the total operations in the period by the number of seconds in that period.

Units: Count

Server processes

Metric Description

ActiveServerProcesses

Server processes with ACTIVE status, which means they are running and able to host game sessions. The count includes idle server processes and those that are hosting game sessions. This metric measures current total server process capacity.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

HealthyServerProcesses

Active server processes that are reporting healthy. This metric is useful for tracking the overall health of the fleet's game servers.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

PercentHealthyServerProcesses

Percentage of all active server processes that are reporting healthy (calculated as HealthyServerProcesses / ActiveServerProcesses).

Units: Percent

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

ServerProcessAbnormalTerminations

Server processes that were shut down due to abnormal circumstances since the last report. This metric includes terminations that were initiated by the Amazon GameLift service. This occurs when a server process stops responding, consistently reports failed health checks, or does not terminate cleanly (by calling ProcessEnding()).

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

ServerProcessActivations

Server processes that successfully transitioned from ACTIVATING to ACTIVE status since the last report. Server processes cannot host game sessions until they are active.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

ServerProcessTerminations

Server processes that were shut down since the last report. This includes all server processes that transitioned to TERMINATED status for any reason, including normal and abnormal process terminations.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

Game sessions

Metric Description

ActivatingGameSessions

Game sessions with ACTIVATING status, which means they are in the process of starting up. Game sessions cannot host players until they are active. High numbers for a sustained period of time may indicate that game sessions are not transitioning from ACTIVATING to ACTIVE status. This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

ActiveGameSessions

Game sessions with ACTIVE status, which means they are able to host players, and are hosting zero or more players. This metric measures the total number of game sessions currently being hosted. This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

AvailableGameSessions

Active, healthy server processes that are not currently being used to host a game session and can start a new game session without a delay to spin up new server processes or instances. This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Note

For fleets that limit concurrent game session activations, use the metric ConcurrentActivatableGameSessions. That metric more accurately represents the number of new game sessions that can start without any type of delay.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

ConcurrentActivatableGameSessions

Active, healthy server processes that are not currently being used to host a game session and can immediately start a new game session.

This metric differs from AvailableGameSessions in the following way: it does not count server processes that currently cannot activate a new game session because of limits on game session activations. (See the fleet RuntimeConfiguration optional setting MaxConcurrentGameSessionActivations). For fleets that don't limit game session activations, this metric is identical to AvailableGameSessions.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

PercentAvailableGameSessions

Percentage of game session slots on all active server processes (healthy or unhealthy) that are not currently being used (calculated as AvailableGameSessions / [ActiveGameSessions + AvailableGameSessions + unhealthy server processes]). This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Units: Percent

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average

Dimensions: Location

GameSessionInterruptions

Number of game sessions on spot instances that have been interrupted.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: Location

Player sessions

Metric Description

CurrentPlayerSessions

Player sessions with either ACTIVE status (player is connected to an active game session) or RESERVED status (player has been given a slot in a game session but hasn't yet connected). This metric can be used with automatic scaling.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

PlayerSessionActivations

Player sessions that transitioned from RESERVED status to ACTIVE since the last report. This occurs when a player successfully connects to an active game session.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Amazon GameLift metrics for queues

The Amazon GameLift namespace includes the following metrics related to activity across a game session placement queue. Queues are used with a managed Amazon GameLift solution. The Amazon GameLift service sends metrics to CloudWatch every minute.

Metric Description

AverageWaitTime

Average amount of time that game session placement requests in the queue with status PENDING have been waiting to be fulfilled.

Units: Seconds

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

Dimensions: Location

FirstChoiceNotViable

Game sessions that were successfully placed but NOT in the first-choice fleet, because that fleet was considered not viable (such as a spot fleet with a high interruption rate). This metric is based on cost, not latency. The first-choice fleet is either the first fleet listed in the queue or—when a placement request includes player latency data—it is the first fleet chosen by FleetIQ prioritization. If there are no viable spot fleets, any fleet in that region may be selected.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

FirstChoiceOutOfCapacity

Game sessions that were successfully placed but NOT in the first-choice fleet, because that fleet had no available resources. The first-choice fleet is either the first fleet listed in the queue or—when a placement request includes player latency data —it is the first fleet chosen by your defined FleetIQ prioritization.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

LowestLatencyPlacement

Game sessions that were successfully placed in a region that offers the queue's lowest possible latency for the players. This metric is emitted only when player latency data is included in the placement request.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

LowestPricePlacement

Game sessions that were successfully placed in a fleet with the queue's lowest possible price for the chosen region. This fleet can be either a spot fleet or an on-demand instance if the queue has no spot instances. This metric is emitted only when player latency data is included in the placement request.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

Placement <region name>

Game sessions that are successfully placed in fleets located in the specified region. This metric breaks down the PlacementsSucceeded metric by region.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

PlacementsCanceled

Game session placement requests that were canceled before timing out since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

PlacementsFailed

Game session placement requests that failed for any reason since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

PlacementsStarted

New game session placement requests that were added to the queue since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

PlacementsSucceeded

Game session placement requests that resulted in a new game session since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

PlacementsTimedOut

Game session placement requests that reached the queue's timeout limit without being fulfilled since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

QueueDepth

Number of game session placement requests in the queue with status PENDING.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

Dimensions: Location

Amazon GameLift metrics for matchmaking

The Amazon GameLift namespace includes metrics on FlexMatch activity for matchmaking configurations and matchmaking rules. FlexMatch matchmaking is used with a managed Amazon GameLift solution. The Amazon GameLift service sends metrics to CloudWatch every minute.

For more information on the sequence of matchmaking activity, see How Amazon GameLift FlexMatch works.

Matchmaking configurations

Metric

Description

CurrentTickets

Matchmaking requests currently being processed or waiting to be processed.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Sum

MatchAcceptancesTimedOut

For matchmaking configurations that require acceptance, the potential matches that timed out during acceptance since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

MatchesAccepted

For matchmaking configurations that require acceptance, the potential matches that were accepted since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

MatchesCreated

Potential matches that were created since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

MatchesPlaced

Matches that were successfully placed into a game session since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

MatchesRejected

For matchmaking configurations that require acceptance, the potential matches that were rejected by at least one player since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

PlayersStarted

Players in matchmaking tickets that were added since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

TicketsFailed

Matchmaking requests that resulted in failure since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

TicketsStarted

New matchmaking requests that were created since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

TicketsTimedOut

Matchmaking requests that reached the timeout limit since the last report.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

TimeToMatch

For matchmaking requests that were put into a potential match before the last report, the amount of time between ticket creation and potential match creation.

Units: Seconds

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Data Samples, Average, Minimum, Maximum

TimeToTicketCancel

For matchmaking requests that were canceled before the last report, the amount of time between ticket creation and cancellation.

Units: Seconds

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Data Samples, Average, Minimum, Maximum

TimeToTicketSuccess

For matchmaking requests that succeeded before the last report, the amount of time between ticket creation and successful match placement.

Units: Seconds

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Data Samples, Average, Minimum, Maximum

Matchmaking rules

Metric Description

RuleEvaluationsPassed

 Rule evaluations during the matchmaking process that passed since the last report. This metric is limited to the top 50 rules.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

RuleEvaluationsFailed

Rule evaluations during matchmaking that failed since the last report. This metric is limited to the top 50 rules.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Amazon GameLift metrics for FleetIQ

The Amazon GameLift namespace includes metrics for FleetIQ game server group and game server activity as part of a FleetIQ standalone solution for game hosting. The Amazon GameLift service sends metrics to CloudWatch every minute. Also see Monitoring your Auto Scaling groups and instances using amazon CloudWatch in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling User Guide.

Metric Description

AvailableGameServers

Game servers that are available to run a game execution and are not currently occupied with gameplay. This number includes game servers that have been claimed but are still in AVAILABLE status.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup

UtilizedGameServers

Game servers that are currently occupied with gameplay. This number includes game servers that are in UTILIZED status.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup

DrainingAvailableGameServers

Game servers on instances scheduled for termination that are currently not supporting gameplay. These game servers are the lowest priority to be claimed in response to a new claim request.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup

DrainingUtilizedGameServers

Game servers on instances scheduled for termination that are currently supporting gameplay.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup

PercentUtilizedGameServers

Portion of game servers that are currently supporting game executions. This metric indicates the amount of game server capacity that is currently in use. It is useful for driving an Auto Scaling policy that can dynamically add and remove instances to match with player demand.

Units: Percent

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Average, Minimum, Maximum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup

GameServerInterruptions

Game servers on Spot Instances that were interrupted due to limited Spot availability.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup, InstanceType

InstanceInterruptions

Spot Instances that were interrupted due to limited availability.

Units: Count

Relevant CloudWatch statistics: Sum

Dimensions: GameServerGroup, InstanceType