# Using CloudWatch Application Insights to monitor your AWS SAM serverless applications
Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights helps you monitor the AWS resources in your applications to help identify potential issues. It can analyze AWS resource data for signs of problems and build automated dashboards to visualize them. You can configure CloudWatch Application Insights to use with your AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM) applications. To learn more about CloudWatch Application Insights, see [Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/cloudwatch-application-insights.html) in the *Amazon CloudWatch User Guide*.
**Topics**
+ [Configuring CloudWatch Application Insights with AWS SAM](#monitor-app-insights-configure)
+ [Next steps](#monitor-app-insights-next)
## Configuring CloudWatch Application Insights with AWS SAM
Configure CloudWatch Application Insights for your AWS SAM applications through the AWS SAM Command Line Interface (AWS SAM CLI) or through your AWS SAM templates.
### Configure through the AWS SAM CLI
When initializing your application with **sam init**, activate CloudWatch Application Insights through the interactive flow or by using the **--application-insights** option.
To activate CloudWatch Application Insights through the AWS SAM CLI interactive flow, enter **y** when prompted.
```
Would you like to enable monitoring using CloudWatch Application Insights?
For more info, please view https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/cloudwatch-application-insights.html [y/N]:
```
To activate CloudWatch Application Insights with the **--application-insights** option, do the following.
```
sam init --application-insights
```
To learn more about using the **sam init** command, see [sam init](sam-cli-command-reference-sam-init.md).
### Configure through AWS SAM templates
Activate CloudWatch Application Insights by defining the `AWS::ResourceGroups::Group` and `AWS::ApplicationInsights::Application` resources in your AWS SAM templates.
```
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
...
Resources:
ApplicationResourceGroup:
Type: AWS::ResourceGroups::Group
Properties:
Name:
Fn::Join:
- ''
- - ApplicationInsights-SAM-
- Ref: AWS::StackName
ResourceQuery:
Type: CLOUDFORMATION_STACK_1_0
ApplicationInsightsMonitoring:
Type: AWS::ApplicationInsights::Application
Properties:
ResourceGroupName:
Fn::Join:
- ''
- - ApplicationInsights-SAM-
- Ref: AWS::StackName
AutoConfigurationEnabled: 'true'
DependsOn: ApplicationResourceGroup
```
+ `AWS::ResourceGroups::Group` – Creates a group to organize your AWS resources in order to manage and automate tasks on a large number of resources at one time. Here, you create a resource group to use with CloudWatch Application Insights. For more information on this resource type, see [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-resource-resourcegroups-group.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-resource-resourcegroups-group.html) in the *AWS CloudFormation User Guide*.
+ `AWS::ApplicationInsights::Application` – Configures CloudWatch Application Insights for the resource group. For more information on this resource type, see [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-resource-applicationinsights-application.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-resource-applicationinsights-application.html) in the *AWS CloudFormation User Guide*.
Both resources are automatically passed through to CloudFormation at application deployment. You can use the CloudFormation syntax in your AWS SAM template to configure CloudWatch Application Insights further. For more information, see [Use CloudFormation templates](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/appinsights-cloudformation.html) in the *Amazon CloudWatch User Guide*.
When using the **sam init --application-insights** command, both of these resources are automatically generated in your AWS SAM template. Here is an example of a generated template.
```
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
Description: >
sam-app-test
Sample SAM Template for sam-app-test
# More info about Globals: https://github.com/awslabs/serverless-application-model/blob/master/docs/globals.rst
Globals:
Function:
Timeout: 3
MemorySize: 128
Resources:
HelloWorldFunction:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Function # More info about Function Resource: https://github.com/awslabs/serverless-application-model/blob/master/versions/2016-10-31.md#awsserverlessfunction
Properties:
CodeUri: hello_world/
Handler: app.lambda_handler
Runtime: python3.9
Architectures:
- x86_64
Events:
HelloWorld:
Type: Api # More info about API Event Source: https://github.com/awslabs/serverless-application-model/blob/master/versions/2016-10-31.md#api
Properties:
Path: /hello
Method: get
ApplicationResourceGroup:
Type: AWS::ResourceGroups::Group
Properties:
Name:
Fn::Join:
- ''
- - ApplicationInsights-SAM-
- Ref: AWS::StackName
ResourceQuery:
Type: CLOUDFORMATION_STACK_1_0
ApplicationInsightsMonitoring:
Type: AWS::ApplicationInsights::Application
Properties:
ResourceGroupName:
Fn::Join:
- ''
- - ApplicationInsights-SAM-
- Ref: AWS::StackName
AutoConfigurationEnabled: 'true'
DependsOn: ApplicationResourceGroup
Outputs:
# ServerlessRestApi is an implicit API created out of Events key under Serverless::Function
# Find out more about other implicit resources you can reference within SAM
# https://github.com/awslabs/serverless-application-model/blob/master/docs/internals/generated_resources.rst#api
HelloWorldApi:
Description: API Gateway endpoint URL for Prod stage for Hello World function
Value: !Sub "https://${ServerlessRestApi}.execute-api.${AWS::Region}.amazonaws.com/Prod/hello/"
HelloWorldFunction:
Description: Hello World Lambda Function ARN
Value: !GetAtt HelloWorldFunction.Arn
HelloWorldFunctionIamRole:
Description: Implicit IAM Role created for Hello World function
Value: !GetAtt HelloWorldFunctionRole.Arn
```
## Next steps
After configuring CloudWatch Application Insights, use **sam build** to build your application and **sam deploy** to deploy your application. All CloudWatch Application Insights supported resources will be configured for monitoring.
+ For a list of supported resources, see [Supported logs and metrics](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/appinsights-logs-and-metrics.html) in the *Amazon CloudWatch User Guide*.
+ To learn how to access CloudWatch Application Insights, see [Access CloudWatch Application Insights](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/appinsights-accessing.html) in the *Amazon CloudWatch User Guide*.