Enabling vended metrics in PromQL
You can enable OTel enrichment to make vended metrics for supported AWS resources queryable via PromQL. Once enabled, metrics that contain a resource identifier dimension (for example, EC2 CPUUtilization with an InstanceId dimension) are enriched with resource ARN and resource tag labels and become queryable using PromQL.
The enriched metric preserves the original metric name and CloudWatch dimensions, and adds:
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Resource attributes – the resource ARN (
cloud.resource_id), cloud provider, region, and account ID. -
Instrumentation scope – identifies the source service and marks the metric as OTel-enriched.
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Resource tags – any AWS resource tags associated with the resource, queryable as PromQL labels.
The original classic CloudWatch metric is not modified and remains available through existing CloudWatch APIs.
Enabling OpenTelemetry enrichment for vended metrics
Before you start OTel enrichment, you must enable resource tags on telemetry for your account.
You can enable OTel enrichment for your account in a specific region using the CloudWatch console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDK.
You will need permissions for the following operation: cloudwatch:StartOTelEnrichment
To enable OTel enrichment for AWS metrics (CloudWatch Console)
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Open the CloudWatch console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/
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In the navigation pane, choose CloudWatch, then choose Settings.
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In the Enable OTel Enrichment for AWS Metrics pane, toggle the feature On.
AWS CLI
aws cloudwatch start-o-tel-enrichment
To enable across multiple regions, invoke the API in each region of interest.
Once enrichment is enabled, you can start querying vended metrics via PromQL. See: Querying vended AWS metrics with PromQL.
