Difference between cluster agent and machine agent with docker visibility

[pralhad.yajurvedi]

Hi,

I wanted to know why there are 2 approaches in container monitoring. One with machine agent with server visibility license and docker monitoring enabled and other with cluster agent with server visibility license.

-What is the difference between both and

-if I want to monitor my infra for the Kubernetes cluster then a machine agent is required?

- If not then can cluster agents do that?

Regards,
Pralhad

[Eric.Miller]

I'm a bit new to the cluster agents myself, but my understanding is that the Cluster agent is newer and so it provides a bit more detail into the pods and clusters, it's also a different license. Whereas the traditional machine agent with server visibility enabled is the traditional approach for non-containerized environments. When you deploy a machine agent into your build process it requires a lot more overhead to upkeep them, but a cluster agent gets added as a mount with a shared .yml in your build process and so it gets managed and distributed much more easily.

[Sanket.Bharaswadkar]

Can we use machine agent license for cluster agent?

Also, for monitoring K8s, is one Cluster Agent sufficient?

[kartik.ravi]

As far as I understood this cluster agent is specifically for Kubernetes deployment where it can monitor K8s environment providing the container level stats and one cluster agent is enough to monitor whole cluster and it requires a Server Visibility license. Machine agent with Docker visibility tag enabled can monitor only environments running in docker and yes that too requires a Server Visibility license. We cannot use machine agent license for cluster agent since cluster agent requires Server Visibility license.