[role="xpack"]
[testenv="basic"]
[[es-monitoring]]
= Monitoring {es}

[partintro]
--
The Elastic {monitor-features} enable you to easily monitor the health of 
your {es} cluster. The monitoring metrics are collected from each node and 
stored in {es} indices. 

TIP: In production environments, it is recommended to store the monitoring data 
in a separate _monitoring cluster_. See 
{stack-ov}/monitoring-production.html[Monitoring in a production environment]. 

Each {es} node is considered unique based on its persistent UUID, which is
written on first start to its <<path-settings,`path.data`>> directory, which
defaults to `./data`.

All settings associated with monitoring in {es} must be set in either the
`elasticsearch.yml` file for each node or, where possible, in the dynamic
cluster settings. For more information, see <<configuring-monitoring>>.

[[es-monitoring-overview]]
{es} is also at the core of monitoring across the {stack}. In all cases, 
monitoring documents are just ordinary JSON documents built by monitoring each 
{stack} component at some collection interval, then indexing those 
documents into the monitoring cluster. 

Each component in the stack is responsible for monitoring itself and then 
forwarding those documents to the {es} production cluster for both routing and 
indexing (storage). The routing and indexing processes in {es} are handled by 
what are called <<es-monitoring-collectors,collectors>> and 
<<es-monitoring-exporters,exporters>>. 

beta[] Alternatively, in 6.4 and later, you can use {metricbeat} to collect 
monitoring data about {kib} and ship it directly to the monitoring cluster, 
rather than routing it through the production cluster. In 6.5 and later, you 
can also use {metricbeat} to collect and ship data about {es}. 

You can view monitoring data from {kib} where it’s easy to spot issues at a
glance or delve into the system behavior over time to diagnose operational
issues. In addition to the built-in status warnings, you can also set up custom
alerts based on the data in the monitoring indices.

For an introduction to monitoring your {stack}, including Beats, {ls}, and {kib}, 
see {stack-ov}/xpack-monitoring.html[Monitoring the {stack}].

--

include::collectors.asciidoc[]
include::exporters.asciidoc[]
include::pause-export.asciidoc[]