# Multiple filebeat instances or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Beats\ **Tags:** filebeat\ **Created:** [August 19, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487 "2016-08-19T21:17:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Akshaykapoor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5fc32e/32.png) [@Akshaykapoor](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Akshaykapoor)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/1 "2016-08-19T21:17:39Z")
I have a use-case where i can have multiple ES clusters running. I want to be able to send logs from multiple sources to 2 ES clusters. - 1st gets business critical logs - 2nd gets all common logs, VM specific This way we can reduce the processing and footprint of a lot of ES clusters except for the 1 (which gets all common logs). From my understanding, there is no way today to send logs to multiple logstash outputs from 1 FB (v1.2.2) instance. One possible way could be to run 2 multiple instances of FB. Is that the best way to achieve this ? If yes, can someone explain how can i go about it and what are some of the variables that i'd need to change in order to get this to work I'm open to suggestion and/or better way to achieve the same. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![renevdm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/renevdm/32/5730_2.png) [@renevdm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/renevdm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/2 "2016-08-22T03:30:07Z")
I use to instances of filebeat for this. I run 2 servies, filebeat.service and filebeat2.service. The second one takes its configureation from /etc/filebeat2 instead of /etc/filebeat. Just configure in the service definition that it will read the new config, and it will work just fine. I also use two binaries, renamed the copied one to filebeat2. ---
**Author:** ![ruflin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ruflin/32/3116_2.png) [@ruflin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ruflin)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 7:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/3 "2016-08-22T07:56:20Z")
One thing you have to make sure is that the two filebeat instances use different registry files. ---
**Author:** ![renevdm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/renevdm/32/5730_2.png) [@renevdm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/renevdm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/4 "2016-08-22T15:52:51Z")
I forgot to mention that, but that is the most important indeed! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Akshaykapoor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5fc32e/32.png) [@Akshaykapoor](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Akshaykapoor)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/5 "2016-08-22T17:09:56Z")
Thanks guys..let me give that a shot. But any idea if this is a feature will be implemented anytime soon in FB natively. ---
**Author:** ![ruflin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ruflin/32/3116_2.png) [@ruflin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ruflin)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 8:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/6 "2016-08-23T08:42:49Z")
All I can say is that it is not on the short term roadmap, means for the 5.0 release. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/multiple-filebeat-instances-or-not/58487/7 "2016-09-09T21:17:45Z")
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