> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://karansingh.gitbook.io/aws-saa-c02/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://karansingh.gitbook.io/aws-saa-c02/monitoring/cloudwatch-agent.md).

# CloudWatch Agent

* There are two types of CloudWatch Agents:
  * **CloudWatch Logs Agent - Older version** with less logging capabilities.<br>
  * **CloudWatch Unified Agent - Newer version** with features such as additional metrics and centralized management with SSM parameter store.<br>
* The unified CloudWatch agent enables you to do the following:
  * **Collect more system-level metrics from Amazon EC2 instances across operating systems**.<br>
  * **Collect system-level metrics from on-premises servers**.
    * These can include servers in a hybrid environment as well as servers not managed by AWS.<br>
  * **Retrieve custom metrics from your applications or services**.<br>
* You can **store and view the metrics that you collect with the CloudWatch agent in CloudWatch just as you can with any other CloudWatch metrics**.