Overview of Stackdriver support for GKE

Note: Stackdriver Monitoring in the Cloud Console is in beta release. Your configuration information, such as uptime checks and alerting policies, is accessible, and changeable, from the Cloud Console and from the classic Stackdriver Monitoring console. This page applies to both consoles. For more information, see Monitoring in the Cloud Console.

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) includes managed support for Stackdriver. When you create a GKE cluster, you can select one of the two Stackdriver support options:

• Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring support.

• Legacy Stackdriver support.

You also have the option to create a GKE cluster without selecting Stackdriver support.

These options are provided by all GKE versions currently available for new clusters and for updates to existing clusters. For installation instructions, see Installing Stackdriver support.

Which Stackdriver option should I use?

You can use the default Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring or opt-in to use Legacy Stackdriver. Both options are generally available as of GKE version 1.12.7. Here are some issues to consider:

• Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring is the default option, starting with GKE version 1.14.

• Legacy Stackdriver is also a generally available option; however, it lacks features and improvements present in Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring.

• Only Legacy Stackdriver lets you disable Stackdriver Logging while still using Stackdriver Monitoring.

Caution: Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring and Legacy Stackdriver are incompatible because they have different data models. To move from Legacy Stackdriver to Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring, you must manually change a number of your Stackdriver artifacts, including alerting policies, group filters, and log queries. See Migrating to Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring for detailed information.

About Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring

Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring, the replacement for Legacy Stackdriver, is designed to monitor GKE clusters. It manages Monitoring and Logging services together and features a Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring interface that provides a dashboard customized for GKE clusters:

• In the summary pane, you can view a cluster's key metrics, such as CPU utilization, memory utilization, and the number of open incidents.

• You can view clusters by their infrastructure, workloads, or services.

• You can inspect namespaces, nodes, workloads, services, pods, and containers.

• For pods and containers, you can view metrics as a function of time and view log entries using the Logs Viewer.

Selecting your Stackdriver support for GKE

If you are using Legacy Stackdriver, then you must switch to Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring before support for Legacy Stackdriver is removed. The approximate timeline is given in the following table:

GKE version	Choose no support	Legacy Stackdriver	Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring
1.10, 1.11, 1.12.5	opt-in	default (GA)	opt-in (Beta)
1.12.7	opt-in	default (GA)	opt-in (GA)
1.13	opt-in	default (GA)	opt-in (GA)
1.14	opt-in	opt-in (GA)	default (GA)

Pricing

For general information on costs associated metrics and logs, see the Pricing page. For detailed information on costs associated with metrics, see Monitoring details.

Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring how-to guides

• Installing Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring: Describes how to enable Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring in new and existing clusters.

• Migrating to Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring: Describes the differences between Legacy Stackdriver and Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring and what you must change in your Stackdriver configurations as part of updating your Stackdriver support.

• Observing your system: Describes the Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring dashboard interface, how to organize cluster information, and how to view alerting details.

• Enabling auditd logs: Describes how to enable verbose, OS-level audit logging on GKE cluster nodes and how to export logs to Stackdriver.

• Using Prometheus: Optional. Describes how to configure Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring for Prometheus support.

Legacy Stackdriver how-to guides

• Stackdriver Monitoring: Describes how to set up Stackdriver Monitoring for your GKE clusters.

• Stackdriver Logging: Describes how to set up Stackdriver Logging for your GKE clusters.