How to setup PROD grade APM server

Elastic Observability APM
1

If you are asking about a problem you are experiencing, please use the following template, as it will help us help you. If you have a different problem, please delete all of this text :slight_smile:

Kibana version:
6.6.1
Elasticsearch version:
6.6.1
APM Server version:
6.6.1
APM Agent language and version:
1.6.1
Browser version:
NA
Original install method (e.g. download page, yum, deb, from source, etc.) and version:
NA
Fresh install or upgraded from other version?
Yes
Is there anything special in your setup? For example, are you using the Logstash or Kafka outputs? Are you using a load balancer in front of the APM Servers? Have you changed index pattern, generated custom templates, changed agent configuration etc.
We have kafka and load balancers been used
Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior. Please include screenshots (if relevant):
Could you please help in setting up PROD grade APM server, with architecture.
Steps to reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Errors in browser console (if relevant):
NA

Provide logs and/or server output (if relevant):
NA

2

Hello there!

The fastest way to get up and running with Elastic APM is with Elastic Cloud. Just follow steps here: https://www.elastic.co/products/apm (you have a free trial).

Otherwise, if you want to manage it yourself, you hopefully can find https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/apm/server/current/setting-up-and-running.html useful.

I can't unfortunately make a broad recommendation because it all depends on your architecture (Docker, Kubenertes, etc), requirements and budget. If you get stuck somewhere or you have some more specific questions, feel free to reach out. Generally thou, the default settings should be good for many production environments.

I hope this helps!

/Juan

3

We are setting up using yum in Redhat. Need to understand the cluster level, how do we configure the apm-server cluster and create loadbalancer. Any doc reference which explains the same is much appreciated
.

4

You don't really need a load balancer since the APM agent can do that . Here's the relevant part from the Java client and it's server_urls setting:

Fails over to the next APM Server URL in the event of connection errors. Achieves load-balancing by shuffling the list of configured URLs. When multiple agents are active, they’ll tend towards spreading evenly across the set of servers due to randomization.

Otherwise the questions is rather broad. The relevant sections from the docs are probably for the configuration and monitoring.

IMO the configuration of Elasticsearch will be the more interesting part than the APM server, but for that you can follow any recommendations for time based indices like logs or metrics.

5

It is also worth clarifying that APM Server instances are stateless, they don't talk to each other.
So there isn't anything special you need to do in order to have 1 instance, 2, or 100.

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