Monitoring AWS Elemental MediaTailor with Amazon CloudWatch metrics - AWS Elemental MediaTailor
AWS Elemental MediaTailor CloudWatch metricsAWS Elemental MediaTailor CloudWatch dimensions

Monitoring AWS Elemental MediaTailor with Amazon CloudWatch metrics

You can monitor AWS Elemental MediaTailor metrics using CloudWatch. CloudWatch collects raw data about the performance of the service and processes that data into readable, near real-time metrics. These statistics are kept for 15 months, so that you can access historical information and gain a better perspective on how your web application or service is performing. You can also 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.

Metrics are grouped first by the service namespace, and then by the various dimension combinations within each namespace.

To view metrics using the CloudWatch console

  1. Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Metrics.

  3. Under All metrics, choose the MediaTailor namespace.

  4. Select the metric dimension to view the metrics (for example, originID).

  5. Specify the time period that you want to view.

To view metrics using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)

  • At a command prompt, use the following command:

    aws cloudwatch list-metrics --namespace "AWS/MediaTailor"

AWS Elemental MediaTailor CloudWatch metrics

The AWS Elemental MediaTailor namespace includes the following metrics. These metrics are published by default to your account.

Channel Assembly (CA) metrics

In the following table, all metrics are available by channel or by channel output.

Metric Description
4xxErrorCount

The number of 4xx errors.
5xxErrorCount

The number of 5xx errors.
RequestCount

The total number of requests. The transaction count depends largely on how often players request updated manifests, and the number of players. Each player request counts as a transaction.
TotalTime

The amount of time that the application server took to process the request, including the time used to receive bytes from and write bytes to the client and network.

Server-side Ad-insertion (SSAI) metrics

The following table lists server-side ad-insertion metrics.

Metric Description
AdDecisionServer.Ads

The count of ads included in ad decision server (ADS) responses within the CloudWatch time period that you specified.
AdDecisionServer.Duration

The total duration, in milliseconds, of all ads that MediaTailor received from the ADS within the CloudWatch time period that you specified. This duration can be greater than the Avail.Duration that you specified.
AdDecisionServer.Errors

The number of non-HTTP 200 status code responses, empty responses, and timed-out responses that MediaTailor received from the ADS within the CloudWatch time period that you specified.
AdDecisionServer.FillRate

The simple average of the rates at which the responses from the ADS filled the corresponding individual ad avails for the time period that you specified.

To get the weighted average, calculate the AdDecisionServer.Duration as a percentage of the Avail.Duration. For more information about simple and weighted averages, see Simple and weighted averages.
AdDecisionServer.Latency

The response time in milliseconds for requests made by MediaTailor to the ADS.
AdDecisionServer.Timeouts

The number of timed-out requests to the ADS in the CloudWatch time period that you specified.
AdNotReady

The number of times that the ADS pointed at an ad that wasn't yet transcoded by the internal transcoder service in the time period that you specified.

A high value for this metric might contribute to a low overall Avail.FillRate.
AdsBilled

The number of ads for which MediaTailor bills customers based on insertion.
Avail.Duration

The planned total number of milliseconds of ad avails within the CloudWatch time period. The planned total is based on the ad avail durations in the origin manifest.
Avail.FilledDuration

The planned number of milliseconds of ad avail time that MediaTailor will fill with ads within the CloudWatch time period.
Avail.FillRate

The planned simple average of the rates at which MediaTailor will fill individual ad avails within the CloudWatch time period.

To get the weighted average, calculate the Avail.FilledDuration as a percentage of the Avail.Duration. For more information about simple and weighted averages, see Simple and weighted averages.

The maximum Avail.FillRate that MediaTailor can attain is bounded by the AdDecisionServer.FillRate. If the Avail.FillRate is low, compare it to the AdDecisionServer.FillRate. If the AdDecisionServer.FillRate is low, your ADS might not be returning enough ads for the avail durations.

Avail.Impression

The number of ads with impression tracking events that MediaTailor sees during server-side beaconing (not the number of impressions).
Avail.ObservedDuration

The observed total number of milliseconds of ad avails that occurred within the CloudWatch time period. Avail.ObservedDuration is emitted at the end of the ad avail, and is based on the duration of the segments reported in the manifest during the ad avail.
Avail.ObservedFilledDuration

The observed number of milliseconds of ad avail time that MediaTailor filled with ads within the CloudWatch time period.
Avail.ObservedFillRate

The observed simple average of the rates at which MediaTailor filled individual ad avails within the CloudWatch time period.
Avail.ObservedSlateDuration

The observed total number of milliseconds of slate that was inserted within the CloudWatch period.
GetManifest.Errors

The number of errors received while MediaTailor was generating manifests in the CloudWatch time period that you specified.
GetManifest.Latency

The MediaTailor response time in milliseconds for the request to generate manifests.
Origin.Errors

The number of non-HTTP 200 status code responses and timed-out responses that MediaTailor received from the origin server in the CloudWatch time period that you specified.
Origin.Latency

The response time for requests made by MediaTailor to your content origin server.
Origin.ManifestFileSizeBytes

The file size of the origin manifest in bytes for both HLS and DASH. Typically this metric is used in conjunction with Origin.ManifestFileSizeTooLarge.
Origin.ManifestFileSizeTooLarge

The number of responses from the origin that have a manifest size larger than the configured amount. Typically this metric is used in conjunction with Origin.ManifestFileSizeBytes.
Origin.Timeouts

The number of timed-out requests to the origin server in the CloudWatch time period that you specified.
Requests

The number of concurrent transactions per second across all request types. The transaction count depends mainly on the number of players and how often the players request updated manifests. Each player request counts as a transaction.
SkippedReason.DurationExceeded

The number of ads that were not inserted into an avail because the ADS returned a duration of ads that was greater than the specified avail duration. A high value for this metric might contribute to a discrepancy between the Avail.Ads and AdDecisionServer.Ads metric.
SkippedReason.EarlyCueIn

The number of ads skipped due to an early CUE-IN.
SkippedReason.InternalError

The number of ads skipped due to a MediaTailor internal error.
SkippedReason.NewCreative

The number of ads that were not inserted into an avail because it was the first time the asset had been requested by a client. A high value for this metric might temporarily contribute to a low overall Avail.FillRate, until assets can be successfully transcoded.
SkippedReason.NoVariantMatch

The number of ads skipped due to there being no variant match between the ad and content.
SkippedReason.PersonalizationThresholdExceeded

The duration of ads exceeding the Personalization Threshold setting in this configuration.
SkippedReason.ProfileNotFound

The number of ads skipped due to the transcoding profile not being found.
SkippedReason.TranscodeError

The number of ads skipped due to a transcode error.
SkippedReason.TranscodeInProgress

The count of the number of ads that were not inserted into an avail because the ad had not yet been transcoded. A high value for this metric might temporarily contribute to a low overall Avail.FillRate, until the assets can be successfully transcoded.

Simple and weighted averages

You can retrieve the simple average and the weighted average for the responses from the ADS to ad requests from MediaTailor and for how MediaTailor fills ad avails:

  • The simple averages are provided in the AdDecisionServer.FillRate and the Avail.FillRate. These are the averages of the fill rate percentages for the individual avails for the time period. The simple averages don't take into account any differences between the durations of the individual avails.

  • The weighted averages are the fill rate percentages for the sum of all avail durations. These are calculated as (AdDecisionServer.Duration*100)/Avail.Duration and (Avail.FilledDuration*100)/Avail.Duration. These averages reflect the differences in duration of each ad avail, giving more weight to those with longer duration.

For a time period that contains just a single ad avail, the simple average provided by the AdDecisionServer.FillRate is equal to the weighted average provided by (AdDecisionServer.Duration*100)/Avail.Duration. The simple average provided by the Avail.FillRate is equal to the weighted average provided by (Avail.FilledDuration*100)/Avail.Duration.

Example

Assume the time period that you specified has the following two ad avails:

  • The first ad avail has 90 seconds duration:

    • The ADS response for the avail provides 45 seconds of ads (50% filled).

    • MediaTailor fills 45 seconds worth of the ad time available (50% filled).

  • The second ad avail has 120 seconds duration:

    • The ADS response for the avail provides 120 seconds of ads (100% filled).

    • MediaTailor fills 90 seconds worth of the ad time available (75% filled).

The metrics are as follows:

  • Avail.Duration is 210, the sum of the two ad avail durations: 90 + 120.

  • AdDecisionServer.Duration is 165, the sum of the two response durations: 45 + 120.

  • Avail.FilledDuration is 135, the sum of the two filled durations: 45 + 90.

  • AdDecisionServer.FillRate is 75%, the average of the percentages filled for each avail: (50% + 100%) / 2. This is the simple average.

  • The weighted average for the ADS fill rates is 78.57%, which is AdDecisionServer.Duration as a percentage of the Avail.Duration: (165*100) / 210. This calculation accounts for the differences in the durations.

  • Avail.FillRate is 62.5%, the average of the filled percentages for each avail: (50% + 75%) / 2. This is the simple average.

  • The weighted average for the MediaTailor avail fill rates is 64.29%, which is the Avail.FilledDuration as a percentage of the Avail.Duration: (135*100) / 210. This calculation accounts for the differences in the durations.

The highest Avail.FillRate that MediaTailor can attain for any ad avail is 100%. The ADS might return more ad time than is available in the avail, but MediaTailor can only fill the time available.

AWS Elemental MediaTailor CloudWatch dimensions

You can filter the AWS Elemental MediaTailor data using the following dimension.

Dimension Description

Configuration Name

Indicates the configuration that the metric belongs to.