Kubernetes monitoring is a system of reporting that helps DevOps and IT teams identify issues and proactively manage complex Kubernetes clusters. It involves analyzing and managing container performance within Kubernetes clusters, which includes collecting performance data for troubleshooting insights, tracking and identifying issues promptly to ensure node performance and user satisfaction, and monitoring the cluster and identifying issues such as insufficient resources, failures, pods that are unable to start, or nodes that cannot join the cluster.
Effective Kubernetes monitoring allows for real-time management of the entire containerized infrastructure by tracking uptime and cluster resource utilizations like memory, CPU, and storage, as well as cluster component interactions. Kubernetes monitoring provides real-time performance insights, allowing for swift issue resolution and enhanced application uptime. It offers visibility into clusters and nodes, helping identify areas of improvement and operational issues.
There are several things that are important to monitor in Kubernetes, including cluster state metrics, node status, pod availability, memory utilization at the pod and node level, disk utilization, CPU utilization, and API request latency. Kubernetes provides detailed information about an applications resource usage at each of these levels.
To monitor Kubernetes, many organizations use specialized cloud-native monitoring tools to gain full visibility over cluster activity. Popular monitoring tools designed for a containerized environment include Kubernetes Dashboard, Heapster/InfluxDB/Grafana, Prometheus/Grafana, Heapster/ELK, and Dynatrace. Kubernetes is designed to work with OpenMetrics, which is one of the CNCF Observability and Analysis - Monitoring Projects, built upon and carefully extending Prometheus exposition format in almost 100% backwards-compatible ways.
In summary, Kubernetes monitoring is a form of reporting that helps with proactive management of clusters by tracking utilization of cluster resources and identifying issues such as insufficient resources, failures, pods that are unable to start, or nodes that cannot join the cluster. Effective Kubernetes monitoring allows for real-time management of the entire containerized infrastructure and provides real-time performance insights, allowing for swift issue resolution and enhanced application uptime. There are several things that are important to monitor in Kubernetes, and many organizations use specialized cloud-native monitoring tools to gain full visibility over cluster activity.
