# How to know when increase the number of master nodes?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-know-when-increase-the-number-of-master-nodes/70687>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 5, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-know-when-increase-the-number-of-master-nodes/70687 "2017-01-05T14:25:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mvleandro](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mvleandro/32/14268_2.png) [@mvleandro](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mvleandro)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-know-when-increase-the-number-of-master-nodes/70687/1 "2017-01-05T14:25:53Z")

</div>

Hello everyone!

There is some guidelines to follow to scale my master nodes?  
There is some metric to analyse to see if i need more master nodes on my cluster?

Thank you!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-know-when-increase-the-number-of-master-nodes/70687/2 "2017-01-05T15:02:57Z")

</div>

If you are using dedicated master nodes, 3 is generally the ideal number. There is generally no need to scale this up as your cluster grows.

The only reasons I can think of to move up to 5 or 7 dedicated master nodes is if you are deploying in a way that you want a dedicated master node per rack or Availability Zone and have more than 3 of these OR if you want to be able to lose more than one master node and still be able to have a fully functioning cluster.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eperry](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/eperry/32/551_2.png) [@eperry](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/eperry)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-know-when-increase-the-number-of-master-nodes/70687/3 "2017-01-05T15:05:10Z")

</div>

There can only be 1 active master, adding nodes help prevent split brain. All the others just receive updates for failover and are used to vote who is master

---

<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:** [February 2, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-know-when-increase-the-number-of-master-nodes/70687/4 "2017-02-02T15:05:26Z")

</div>

Closed on February 2, 2017, 3:05pm UTC

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.