Which node(s) in my ES cluster do I point Logstash to?

I have ES 4 servers running as such:

  1. Client Node (also hosting Kibana)
  2. Default setting (By default a node is both a master-eligible node and a data node)
  3. Default setting
  4. Default setting

In Logstash's output setting for Elasticsearch, do I put the single IP of the client node? Or an array with all 4 nodes?

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I think it depends on your indexing rate. If you index like 50 GB a day, then an array of node 2,3,4 or just the client node should be fine. Use Marvel to monitor node health and have a dedicated client node for indexing if you see any slowness on indexing node(s).

If you have more RAM per servers, you can also run multiple ES instances per server. A cluster is more stable if you have 3 dedicated master instances. In my case I have 3 master instances with heap size 4 GB each.

I even use a master node with 4 GB heap size to serve Kibana requests without any issues so far.

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