[role="xpack"]
[[monitoring-overview]]
== Monitoring overview
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<titleabbrev>Overview</titleabbrev>
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When you monitor a cluster, you collect data from the {es} nodes, {ls} nodes,
{kib} instances, and Beats in your cluster. You can also
<<configuring-filebeat,use {filebeat} to collect {es} logs>>. 

All of the monitoring metrics are stored in {es}, which enables you to easily
visualize the data from {kib}. By default, the monitoring metrics are stored in
local indices.

TIP: In production, we strongly recommend using a separate monitoring cluster.
Using a separate monitoring cluster prevents production cluster outages from
impacting your ability to access your monitoring data. It also prevents
monitoring activities from impacting the performance of your production cluster.
For the same reason, we also recommend using a separate {kib} instance for
viewing the monitoring data.

You can use {metricbeat} to collect and ship data about {es}, {kib}, {ls}, and
Beats directly to your monitoring cluster rather than routing it through your
production cluster. The following diagram illustrates a typical monitoring
architecture with separate production and monitoring clusters:

image::images/architecture.png[A typical monitoring environment]

If you have the appropriate license, you can route data from multiple production
clusters to a single monitoring cluster. For more information about the
differences between various subscription levels, see:
https://www.elastic.co/subscriptions

IMPORTANT: In general, the monitoring cluster and the clusters being monitored
should be running the same version of the stack. A monitoring cluster cannot
monitor production clusters running newer versions of the stack. If necessary,
the monitoring cluster can monitor production clusters running the latest
release of the previous major version.