How to gain Kubernetes visibility in just a few clicks

Enterprises are increasingly adopting Kubernetes for the value that it brings to their organizations, from IT cost savings to improved time to market for application development. But with this shift comes a fundamental challenge: how to gain comprehensive visibility into your Kubernetes applications, when most existing monitoring tools are hard to scale or provide little or no visibility into Kubernetes?

This challenge stems from two unique characteristics of Kubernetes. One, it is ephemeral. Things get created and destroyed in a matter of minutes. Second, Kubernetes systems are built to scale quickly, so observability platforms must dynamically handle changing volumes of telemetry data being sent.

Sumo Logic provides native integrations with best practice, open-source data sources for Kubernetes and data collection that auto-discovers your Kubernetes architecture. With instant access to performance metrics, logs, traces, Kubernetes system events and security events, organizations like LendingTree and Alaska Airlines can implement Kubernetes with confidence. For LendingTree, that means deploying Kubernetes to select the optimal blend of cloud vendors that meet their needs as part of their multi-cloud strategy.

Onboarding Kubernetes data should be simple

Organizations looking to realize the tremendous value of Kubernetes quickly need a simple way to onboard their data into Sumo Logic’s platform. As part of our commitment to customers, Sumo Logic offers a guided onboarding workflow to get Kubernetes observability up and running in just a few clicks—without needing to know Sumo Logic’s platform in depth beforehand.

To make onboarding as straightforward as possible, our team has focused on three key areas of the experience:

1. One unified workflow: Instead of having separate journeys for onboarding, we have collapsed data collection, app/dashboard installation and monitor/alert installation into one workflow that requires only three steps to get started.

2. Accessible documentation (just in case!): Throughout the workflow, you are shown supporting documentation, like troubleshooting guides and FAQs, in case you need more information.

3. Automatic information access for better visibility and collaboration: Dashboards are automatically shared with other users within your organization.

So, with that said, how do you get started monitoring Kubernetes data?

First, go to the Sumo Logic App Catalog in your Sumo Logic instance, where you’ll find a category for Kuberentes. This page includes the apps related to the Kubernetes ecosystem, including our main integration for onboarding application and infrastructure data from any Kubernetes environment.

After clicking “begin” to start the installation, you can onboard application and infrastructure data from your Kubernetes environment in three steps:

1. Choose whether you want to install monitors (alerts).

2. Perform the pre-work required to start the installation.

3. Run the installation on your Kubernetes cluster (single command).

Once you run the installation step, the system will provide a progress update, and that’s it — you’re done.

All of your application log data, along with the infrastructure data from your Kubernetes environment, should now be in the Sumo Logic platform, where you can monitor the health of your application.

If your organization is looking to gain Kubernetes visibility, you can head here to sign up for a trial. Be sure to also review our docs page for more help guides and background on our solution. And if you’re looking for some best practices around Kubernetes observability before diving in, check out our ebook, Demystifying Kubernetes.