You do not need to activate and purchase Alibaba Cloud CloudMonitor service to monitor the status of the ECS instance via Alibaba Cloud console. CloudMonitor is a service that monitors Alibaba Cloud resources and Internet applications. CloudMonitor provides a one-stop, out-of-the-box, and enterprise-class monitoring solution1. CloudMonitor collects monitor metrics of Alibaba Cloud resources and custom metrics and enables you to view and understand the usage of the cloud resources, and the health of your business2. CloudMonitor allows you to monitor the metrics of Alibaba Cloud services, detect the availability of websites hosted on ECS instances or carrier servers, and configure alert rules for specified metrics3. However, CloudMonitor is not a prerequisite for monitoring the status of the ECS instance via Alibaba Cloud console. You can monitor the status of the ECS instance via Alibaba Cloud console without activating and purchasing CloudMonitor service. You can view the basic information, configuration, security group, and tags of the ECS instance in the console. You can also view the CPU, memory, disk, and network usage of the ECS instance in the console. You can also use the Cloud Assistant feature to run commands on the ECS instance remotely4.