Monitoring and troubleshooting multilocation canaries
When you create a multilocation canary, CloudWatch Synthetics consolidates run data, artifacts, and key metrics in the primary Region, giving you a unified view of your canary's performance across all locations. If the primary Region becomes unavailable, you can still access run data, metrics, and logs directly in each replica Region.
Canary runs
In the CloudWatch Synthetics console in the primary Region, you can view canary runs from the primary and all replica Regions in a single table on the canary detail page. Each run includes a Location column that shows the Region where it was executed. You can filter runs by location to compare performance and identify issues in specific Regions.
You can also navigate to the CloudWatch Synthetics console in any replica Region to view runs that were executed in that Region independently.
Artifacts
Screenshots, HAR files, and reports from all locations are stored in the same Amazon S3 bucket configured for your canary. Replicas write artifacts directly to the primary Region's Amazon S3 bucket under a regional prefix, so that you can identify which location generated them:
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Primary runs:
s3://bucket/canary/primaryRegion/canaryName/year/month/day/hour/minute-second-millisecond -
Replica runs:
s3://bucket/canary/primaryRegion/canaryName/year/month/day/hour/replicaRegion/minute-second-millisecond
Because Amazon S3 buckets are globally accessible, you can retrieve artifacts from any Region. When you select a run on the canary detail page, the CloudWatch Synthetics console displays the associated screenshots and reports inline, regardless of which location executed the run.
Metrics
Multilocation canaries publish the following metrics to CloudWatch in the primary Region:
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SuccessPercent — Published with a
Locationdimension for each Region where the canary runs. An aggregateSuccessPercentmetric without theLocationdimension represents the combined success rate across all locations. To monitor overall canary health across all locations, create a CloudWatch alarm on this aggregate metric. -
Duration — Published with a
Locationdimension for each Region where the canary runs.
All canary metrics are also published in the respective replica Region. If the primary Region is unavailable, you can navigate to the CloudWatch console in any replica Region to view metrics for that location.
For a complete list of metrics published by canaries, see CloudWatch metrics published by canaries.
Logs
When you select a run on the canary detail page, you can view the associated logs for that run regardless of which location executed it. This allows you to debug failures from any location directly in the primary Region.
To centralize canary logs from all Regions into a single CloudWatch Logs view, you can configure cross-Region log centralization. For more information, see Using log centralization with multilocation canaries.
