CloudLens for EBS is a feature provided by Alibaba Cloud that is used to analyze data and monitor the performance of Elastic Block Storage (EBS) resources. You can use CloudLens for EBS to obtain the information and performance data of EBS resources in the cloud. This improves the management efficiency of EBS resources and helps you analyze business fluctuations and resource consumption.

Benefits

  • Near real-time monitoring

    CloudLens for EBS provides near real-time monitoring for disk performance. CloudLens for EBS can monitor more fine-grained changes in disk performance compared with the minute-level monitoring provided by EBS.

  • Multidimensional metrics

    Unlike EBS, which provides only basic data information of each disk, CloudLens for EBS aggregates various dimensions of information, including the number of disks, capacities of disks, proportion of disks with snapshots enabled, proportion of encrypted disks, proportion of each disk category, proportion of each billing method of disks, and disk performance metrics (such as read/write IOPS and throughput).

  • Automated data collection

    CloudLens for EBS provides the data collection feature to improve the management efficiency of EBS resources.

Billing

You can use the features of CloudLens for EBS free of charge.

Use scenarios

CloudLens for EBS is suitable for individuals or enterprise users who want to monitor storage performance across multiple dimensions and require high data security. The following section describes example use scenarios:
  • E-commerce or ticketing websites experience fluctuations in page views. Page view fluctuations may cause disk traffic to reach the upper limit and result in server jitter. Basic disk monitoring metrics and features do not meet your requirements, and you want to collect comprehensive performance monitoring metrics. In such scenarios, you can use CloudLens for EBS to collect comprehensive storage performance metrics in conjunction with storage resource data collected by Log Service. This helps you identify and resolve issues when exceptions occur on disk performance.
  • You are new to cloud computing and unfamiliar with how to manage cloud resources. Before you create snapshots for data disks that have essential data stored, you accidentally initialize the disks. No snapshots can be used to roll back the data, and the data is lost. In such scenarios, you can use CloudLens for EBS to obtain the information of whether snapshots are created for existing disks within your Alibaba Cloud account. Then, you can create snapshots for disks to prevent data loss based on the information provided by CloudLens for EBS.

Usage notes

When you use CloudLens for EBS, take note of the following items:
  • The first time you enable CloudLens for EBS, the system requires 1 to 5 minutes to prepare data.
  • After you allow CloudLens for EBS to access disks and enable near real-time monitoring, the system requires 1 to 10 minutes to prepare data. The near real-time monitoring data of disks is collected from the point in time when the data preparation ends and then displayed on the Near Real-time Monitoring tab of the Disk Analysis page.
  • When a disk is being initialized, CloudLens for EBS can continue to monitor the disk as expected.
  • If a disk is attached to an expired subscription instance but is not released, CloudLens for EBS can continue to monitor the disk as expected.
  • If a disk is released, you cannot view the historical monitoring data of the disk by using CloudLens for EBS.
  • Near real-time monitoring cannot be enabled on disks for which the multi-attach feature is enabled.