Step 0: Overview

To monitor your Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL or Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL instances with pganalyze, you need to run the pganalyze collector. The pganalyze collector connects to your database to capture query metadata and various statistics, then relays this information back to pganalyze on a continuous basis. The collector can be installed directly on an Amazon EC2 instance, with Amazon ECS, or with Docker.

Prerequisites

Database Instance

• Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL or Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL instance to monitor
• PostgreSQL version 10 or above
• Access with an RDS superuser (master user)
  • Required to create a monitoring user, extensions, and helper functions
  • This is only required during setup

Collector Setup

• Capability to create an instance for running the collector
  • The collector instance needs be able to connect to RDS or Aurora instances
• Capability to create an IAM policy/role for the collector
  • A new policy/role is required to access to the RDS metadata, Cloudwatch metrics, etc.
• A direct connection to the PostgreSQL instance
  • The collector instance needs to be able to connect to the instance directly, bypass any connection poolers like PgBouncer

Here is an overview diagram for how the pganalyze collector will be placed within your existing setup.

The collector can be installed in a different AWS account from the one hosting the RDS/Aurora instance, provided that the collector can establish a connection to the RDS/Aurora instance (e.g., using VPC Peering). Additionally, the collector must be set up to assume an IAM role from the RDS side, which should have the appropriate policies for accessing RDS logs and system metrics. This role must include a trusted policy that permits the collector's account to assume it.

Continue by configuring RDS instance: