Observability Centralization Points

What Are Centralization Points?

Observability Centralization Points are specialized Netdata installations that you can configure to receive, store, and process observability data (metrics and logs) from multiple other systems in your infrastructure.

These centralization points give you several core functions:

• Receiving and storing metrics and logs from multiple systems
• Processing and analyzing your collected data
• Running health checks and alerts
• Providing unified dashboards across all your systems
• Replicating data for your historical analysis

This distributed yet centralized approach gives you the benefits of both decentralized collection and centralized analysis.

Why Use Centralization Points?

Use Case	Description	Benefits
Ephemeral Systems	Ideal for your Kubernetes nodes or temporary VMs that frequently go offline	You retain metrics and logs for analysis and troubleshooting even after node termination
Limited Resources	Offloads observability tasks from your systems with low disk space, CPU, RAM, or I/O bandwidth	Your production systems run efficiently without performance trade-offs
Multi-Node Dashboards Without Netdata Cloud	Aggregates data from all your nodes for centralized dashboards	You get Cloud-like functionality in environments that prefer or require on-premises solutions
Restricted Netdata Cloud Access	Acts as a bridge when your monitored systems can't connect to Netdata Cloud	You can still use Cloud features despite firewall restrictions or security policies

How Multiple Centralization Points Work

Scenario	Operation	Advantages
With Netdata Cloud	Queries all your centralization points in parallel for a unified view	You get a seamless experience regardless of your underlying architecture
Without Netdata Cloud	Your centralization points consolidate data from connected systems	You have a local view of metrics and logs without external dependencies
High Availability Setup	Your centralization points share data with each other, forming a cluster	You won't lose data if one centralization point fails

Technical Implementation

Observability Centralization Points consist of two major components you can deploy:

1. Metrics Centralization - Uses Netdata's streaming and replication features to centralize your metrics data
2. Logs Centralization - Uses systemd-journald methodologies to centralize your log data

You can configure your systems to connect to multiple centralization points for redundancy. If a connection fails, they automatically switch to an available alternative.

In a high-availability setup, your centralization points can form a cluster by sharing data with each other, ensuring all points have a complete copy of all your metrics and logs.