Kubernetes - Prometheus & Grafana

Introduction

Kubernetes is a powerful orchestration tool for containerized applications, but monitoring its health and performance is crucial for maintaining reliability. This is where Prometheus and Grafana come into play. Prometheus is a robust monitoring system that collects and stores time-series data, while Grafana provides rich visualization capabilities, making it easier to analyze metrics and spot issues.

In this post, we will explore how Prometheus and Grafana work together to monitor Kubernetes clusters, ensuring optimal performance and stability.

Why Use Prometheus and Grafana for Kubernetes Monitoring?

1. Prometheus — The Monitoring Powerhouse

Prometheus is widely used in Kubernetes environments due to its powerful features:

• Time-series database: Efficiently stores metrics in a multi-dimensional format.
• Kubernetes-native integration: Seamless discovery of pods, nodes, and services.
• Powerful querying with PromQL: Enables complex queries to extract meaningful insights.
• Alerting system: Supports rule-based alerts via Alertmanager.

2. Grafana — The Visualization Layer

Grafana transforms raw metrics from Prometheus into insightful dashboards:

• Customizable dashboards: Tailor views to highlight key performance indicators.
• Multi-source support: Can integrate data from multiple sources alongside Prometheus.
• Alerting & notifications: Get notified about critical issues via various channels.

Setting Up Prometheus & Grafana in Kubernetes

1. Deploy Prometheus

Using Helm, you can install Prometheus in your Kubernetes cluster:

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts

helm repo update

helm install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack

This will install Prometheus, Alertmanager, and related components.

2. Deploy Grafana

Grafana is included in the kube-prometheus-stack Helm chart, but if you want to install it separately:

helm install grafana grafana/grafana

After installation, retrieve the admin password and access Grafana:

kubectl get secret — namespace default grafana -o jsonpath=”{.data.admin-password}” | base64 — decode

kubectl port-forward svc/grafana 3000:80

Access Grafana at https://localhost:3000 using the retrieved credentials.

3. Configure Prometheus as a Data Source

In Grafana:

• Go to Configuration > Data Sources
• Select Prometheus
• Enter the Prometheus service URL (e.g., https://prometheus-server.default.svc.cluster.local:9090)
• Click Save & Test

4. Import Kubernetes Dashboards

Grafana provides ready-made dashboards for Kubernetes. You can import dashboards by using community templates available on Grafana Dashboards.

Key Metrics to Monitor in Kubernetes

Some essential Kubernetes metrics to track using Prometheus and Grafana include:

• Node Health: CPU, memory, disk usage
• Pod & Container Performance: CPU and memory usage per pod
• Kubernetes API Server Health: Request latency, error rates
• Networking Metrics: Traffic in/out per pod, DNS resolution times
• Custom Application Metrics: Business logic performance, request rates

Setting Up Alerts

Using Prometheus Alertmanager, you can configure alerts for critical conditions:

- alert: HighCPUUsage
    expr: avg(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total[5m])) by (pod) > 0.8
    for: 5m
    labels:
      severity: critical
    annotations:
      summary: "High CPU usage detected"        

Alerts can be sent via email, Slack, PagerDuty, and other integrations.

Conclusion

Prometheus and Grafana provide a comprehensive monitoring and visualization solution for Kubernetes clusters. With the right setup, you can gain deep insights into your cluster’s performance, detect anomalies, and ensure high availability.

By integrating Prometheus’ powerful data collection with Grafana’s intuitive dashboards, teams can efficiently manage and troubleshoot Kubernetes environments. Start monitoring today and take your Kubernetes operations to the next level!

For more details www.hawkstack.com