RDSCPUUtilization #

Meaning #

This alert is triggered when the RDS instance has high CPU usage.

Impact #

High CPU usage degrades database performance.

Diagnosis #

1. Open RDS Performance Insights to identify queries consuming the server’s CPU.

2. Check queries that are currently running on the CPU

   SQL

   PostgreSQL

   SELECT pid, usename, datname, application_name, now() - query_start duration, left(query, 60)
   FROM   pg_stat_activity
   WHERE  state = 'active'
       AND    wait_event_type IS NULL
       AND    wait_event IS NULL
   ORDER BY duration desc;
   

Mitigation #

• Kill CPU-intensive SQL queries

• Reduce the number of database connections

• Check CPU and disk saturation. You may need to upscale the RDS instance

Additional resources #

• https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/monitoring-stats.html#WAIT-EVENT-TABLE
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/wait-event.cpu.html