How long does metrics data in AWS cloudwatch maintained

Question

Their API reference says the date start date should be less than 14 days from the current date. I would like to know whether the data older than this is deleted and not available

Answer 1

Metrics used to be kept for 2 weeks, but as @sfgeorge points out, AWS has increased storage times.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-cloudwatch.html

When you use the mon-put-data command, you must use a date range within the past two weeks. There is currently no function to delete data points. Amazon CloudWatch automatically deletes data points with a timestamp more than two weeks old.

Answer 2

As of November 1st, 2016, the retention window for AWS metrics in CloudWatch has expanded from 14 days to 15 months.

Note that the data granularity will be reduced when you widen your range beyond the past 15 days:

• One minute data points are available for 15 days.
• Five minute data points are available for 63 days.
• One hour data points are available for 455 days (15 months).