# Heartbeat high network utilization

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-high-network-utilization/248184>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** heartbeat\
**Created:** [September 10, 2020, 1:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-high-network-utilization/248184 "2020-09-10T13:50:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ehausig1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ehausig1/32/64749_2.png) [@ehausig1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ehausig1)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 1:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-high-network-utilization/248184/1 "2020-09-10T13:50:30Z")

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I'm trying to figure out why Heartbeat seems to be using so much network bandwidth:

I have a single http monitor for an Elasticsearch endpoint that is scheduled every 10s. The endpoint returns about a 600 byte response and a 200 OK.

Here is my configuration:

```auto
    compression_level: 9

    heartbeat.monitors:
    - type: http
      id: sample
      name: sample
      hosts: ["https:// ************.us-east-1.aws.found.io:9243"]
      check.response.status: [200]
      schedule: '@every 10s'
      username: *****************
      password: **********************
    heartbeat.scheduler:
      limit: 10

    reload.enabled: false

    cloud.id: ${ELASTIC_CLOUD_ID}
    cloud.auth: ${ELASTIC_CLOUD_AUTH}

    #processors:
    # - add_cloud_metadata: ~
    #
    # - add_observer_metadata:
    # cache.ttl: 5m
    # geo:
    # name: us-east-1
    # location: 39.0437, -77.4875
    # continent_name: North America
    # country_iso_code: US
    # region_name: N. Virginia
    # region_iso_code: VA
    # city_name: Ashburn

    output.elasticsearch:
      hosts: ['${ELASTICSEARCH_HOST:elasticsearch}:${ELASTICSEARCH_PORT:9200}']
      username: ${ELASTICSEARCH_USERNAME}
      password: ${ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWORD}
      ssl.verification_mode: none
      protocol: https
      compression_level: 9

```

I'm running `docker.elastic.co/beats/heartbeat:7.9.1` in a K8s pod with no additional processors enabled, and I've added compression\_level of 9 because I can afford the CPU cost.

CPU utilization is low (around 1millicore) and memory is around 20 MiB. However, the pod has relatively sustained network I/O of around 1.3 Mbps/transmit and 1.3 Mbps/receive, along with around 1300 Pps.

I've verified the metrics in different monitoring solutions including Elastic Observability and Promethues/Grafana, so they doesn't seem to be a "trick of the light".

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/b/4/b4ba67f62e724707f024f01a51fed0b12d4d0984.png)

The network utilization seems high to me given the frequency of the heartbeat and the size of the request/response. Furthermore, I would expect the network I/O pattern for a heartbeat to have spikes of network utilization, rather than it being sustained.

Originally, I had about 8 monitors in the config and observed the same utilization. In troubleshooting, I reduced it down to 1 monitor but this didn't seem to have an impact.

Has anyone else experienced this? While Heartbeat appears to be working (I'm receiving the signal in Elasticsearch), perhaps there's a misconfiguration in my `heartbeat.yml`?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/heartbeat-high-network-utilization/248184/2 "2020-10-08T15:50:36Z")

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