Synthetics

CloudWatch Synthetics uses canaries—automated scripts that simulate user actions—to proactively check your app’s key paths, even when no real users are active. Canaries can run simple health checks, complex user journeys, API tests, visual regression checks, and broken link scans. You can schedule them to run as often as needed, and trigger alarms if they fail or run slowly. AWS provides templates and tools like the Chrome recorder plugin to make setup easy, but costs can add up fast, so plan your coverage carefully.

Transcript

So we discussed a lot of strategies how we can effectively monitor every part of application. But how do we ensure that our application is working correctly, even if there is no traffic or just minimal traffic. All of our previous conditions are just looking for the unhappy paths, so an error is thrown or something is not working as expected. Purchase the full course to access the complete transcript.

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50:54

Major Learnings

•Synthetics canaries run scripts to check your app’s health and user journeys, even with no real traffic.
•You can use templates or record scripts with a browser plugin, then customize them as needed.
•Canaries support various checks: health endpoints, APIs, visual layouts, and broken links.
•Alarms can trigger on failures, low success rates, or slow runs; but executions are costly, so balance coverage and cost.

Next Steps

1.Start by creating a basic canary using a template or the Chrome recorder plugin.
2.Set up alarms for your canaries to get notified on failures or slowdowns.
3.Group multiple checks into fewer canaries to stay within free tier or control costs.
4.Review and adapt your canary scripts as your app changes, focusing on your most critical paths.