How to build Amazon ECS dashboards in Metabase

Amazon ECS is an AWS container orchestration service that runs and scales containerized workloads on EC2 and Fargate. Metabase is where you turn those operational signals into shared, trustworthy dashboards. This guide covers two complementary paths: a lightweight MCP + CLI route that pulls live data with the Amazon ECS MCP Server and loads a CSV into Metabase with the Metabase CLI, and a durable pipeline route that syncs Amazon ECS rollups into a database so you can build dashboards anyone can read.

How do you connect Amazon ECS to Metabase?

Most teams combine both routes: use MCP and CLI uploads for a fast first pass, then move recurring reliability reporting to a warehouse-backed model.

What can you analyze from Amazon ECS data in Metabase?

• Cluster and service utilization — built from services and tasks and the related clusters, deployments, Container Insights metrics data your sync exposes.
• Deployment health and rollbacks — built from services and tasks and the related clusters, deployments, Container Insights metrics data your sync exposes.
• Task failures and restarts — built from services and tasks and the related clusters, deployments, Container Insights metrics data your sync exposes.
• Cost by cluster and service — built from services and tasks and the related clusters, deployments, Container Insights metrics data your sync exposes.
• Capacity headroom — built from services and tasks and the related clusters, deployments, Container Insights metrics data your sync exposes.

Which Amazon ECS dashboards should you build in Metabase?

How do you use the Amazon ECS MCP Server with the Metabase CLI?

Pair the Amazon ECS MCP Server with the Metabase CLI for fast, hands-on analysis. MCP is useful for scoped lookups and summarized exports; the Metabase CLI's upload command loads CSV data into Metabase and creates a ready-to-query table and model.

Example workflow

• Ask the MCP server for the current inventory of services and tasks with utilization summaries.
• Export the result as CSV, keeping stable IDs, services, environments, severities, and timestamps.
• Run mb upload csv to load it into Metabase as a table and model, then build questions and dashboards on top.

Be honest about the limits

• MCP lookups are excellent for exploration, not scheduled reporting.
• A CSV upload is a snapshot; refresh it with mb upload replace or move to the pipeline for real history.
• Daily snapshots are required for utilization, capacity, and cost trends.
• mb upload csv needs an uploads database configured under Admin → Settings → Uploads.

How do you set up Amazon ECS MCP and the Metabase CLI?

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "awslabs.ecs-mcp-server": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "awslabs-ecs-mcp-server", "ecs-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "AWS_PROFILE": "your-aws-profile",
        "AWS_REGION": "us-east-1",
        "ALLOW_WRITE": "false",
        "ALLOW_SENSITIVE_DATA": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

Read-only by default — keep ALLOW_WRITE off for analysis. AWS positions the local server for development and testing rather than production automation.

# Install the Metabase CLI
npm install -g @metabase/cli

# Log in (opens your browser; requires Metabase v62+)
mb auth login --url https://your-metabase.example.com

# Load a services-and-tasks export — creates a table AND a model
mb upload csv --file aws-ecs-services-and-tasks.csv --collection root

# Refresh that same table later from a new export
mb upload replace <table-id> --file aws-ecs-services-and-tasks.csv

Can you generate a Amazon ECS dashboard with AI?

Yes. Use the prompt below with any assistant that can run the Amazon ECS MCP Server and the Metabase CLI. It works end to end: if Amazon ECS tables already exist in Metabase it analyzes those; otherwise it pulls scoped, summarized data over MCP, loads it with mb upload csv, then builds the dashboard and caveats any metric that needs missing history.

Create a polished Metabase dashboard for Amazon ECS infrastructure analytics.
Work end to end: get the data into Metabase if it isn't there yet, then build.

Goal: Help engineering and operations leaders understand utilization, deployment health, cost signals, and workload reliability from Amazon ECS data.

Step 1 — Find or load the data:
- First, check what already exists in Metabase (search for aws-ecs tables and
  models). If durable Amazon ECS data is already present — synced from a warehouse
  or uploaded earlier — use it and skip to Step 2.
- If nothing is there, pull a scoped, summarized export with the Amazon ECS MCP Server:
  services and tasks, plus clusters, deployments, Container Insights metrics.
  Prefer aggregated or rollup views over raw events. Write each result to a CSV,
  then load it with the Metabase CLI — run "mb upload csv --file <export>.csv" so
  each upload creates a table and a ready-to-query model. Use "mb upload replace
  <table-id> --file <export>.csv" to refresh an existing table instead of creating
  duplicates.

Step 2 — Inspect before querying:
Do not assume exact table or column names. Inspect available fields, services,
environments, timestamps, and whether rollups or history exist before creating
duration or trend cards.

Important:
- Build on whatever data is present; don't claim Metabase connects natively to
  Amazon ECS — it reads a database or CLI-uploaded tables.
- Never try to load the raw event firehose into Metabase; use rollups, entity
  tables, and incident- or group-grain data.
- Only compute durations (MTTA, MTTR, time-to-resolve) when the required
  timestamps exist.
- Exclude test, staging, or muted objects from headline reliability cards, and
  segment by environment where the field exists.
- A single CSV is a point-in-time snapshot: only build trend cards if there is a
  usable date column or multiple periods have been uploaded.

Dashboard title: Amazon ECS Infrastructure Overview

Sections:
1. Executive summary: Clusters/services tracked; Avg utilization; Deploys last
   30 days; Change failure rate; Cost last 30 days if synced.
2. Utilization: CPU/memory usage vs requests by workload; headroom by cluster.
3. Changes: Deployments and rollbacks by week; failure rate by service.
4. Cost: Spend by service/namespace by month; idle resources.
5. Reliability: Restarts, failed jobs, pending workloads, availability.

Filters: Date range, Service, Environment, Severity, Team, Status.

Output: Build the dashboard if you have permission; otherwise provide the exact
questions, SQL, model definitions, and layout. Include caveats for any metric
that cannot be calculated from the available data.

How do you sync Amazon ECS data into a database or warehouse?

For dashboards that need history and reliability, land Amazon ECS rollups and metadata in a database first, then connect Metabase to that database.

Connector options

• Managed ETL — use a connector when one covers the objects you need.
• Custom pipeline — use the Amazon ECS API for control over rollup grain, fields, and refresh cadence.
• MCP + CSV — use this for quick exploration and one-off slices.

No ECS-specific connector exists — script cluster, service, and task inventory with the ECS API, pull utilization from CloudWatch Container Insights, and land spend via Cost Explorer connectors or Cost and Usage Reports.

Notes

• Decide the rollup grain first (hourly or daily per service/environment) — it drives warehouse cost and every trend card.
• Land raw entity tables first, then build clean Metabase models on top.
• Normalize cluster, workload, environment, capacity, usage, and cost-allocation fields.

How should you model Amazon ECS data in Metabase?

Core tables

Modeling advice

• Build a clean resource_snapshots model with common columns across tools, so multi-source dashboards don't fork definitions.
• Separate entity tables (services, monitors, policies) from time-series rollups and event-grain tables.
• Exclude test, staging, and muted objects from headline reliability metrics; keep environment as an explicit column.
• Use stable IDs for service, team, and incident joins; display names change.

Which Amazon ECS metrics should you track in Metabase?

What SQL powers Amazon ECS dashboards in Metabase?

These assume a cleaned analytical model in a warehouse (PostgreSQL dialect). Adjust table and column names to match your pipeline.

SELECT
  workload_name,
  ROUND(AVG(cpu_used_cores / NULLIF(cpu_requested_cores, 0)) * 100, 1)
    AS avg_cpu_utilization_pct,
  ROUND(AVG(memory_used_bytes / NULLIF(memory_requested_bytes, 0)) * 100, 1)
    AS avg_memory_utilization_pct
FROM resource_snapshots
WHERE snapshot_date >= CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL '14 days'
GROUP BY workload_name
ORDER BY avg_cpu_utilization_pct ASC;

SELECT
  date_trunc('week', deployed_at) AS week,
  COUNT(*) AS deployments,
  COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE status IN ('failed', 'rolled_back')) AS failed,
  ROUND(
    100.0 * COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE status IN ('failed', 'rolled_back'))
    / NULLIF(COUNT(*), 0), 1
  ) AS change_failure_rate
FROM deployments
WHERE environment = 'production'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1;

SELECT
  date_trunc('month', usage_date) AS month,
  service_name,
  ROUND(SUM(cost_usd), 2) AS cost_usd
FROM cost_allocations
GROUP BY 1, 2
ORDER BY 1, cost_usd DESC;

What are common mistakes when analyzing Amazon ECS in Metabase?

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FAQ