ELK Stack (Elastic Stack)
The ELK Stack, also known as the Elastic Stack, is a powerful combination of three open-source products — Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, all developed by Elastic. Alongside these, the Beats family of lightweight data shippers completes the stack, providing a robust platform for real-time data search, analysis, and visualization.
Table of Contents
Elasticsearch
Description: A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine.
Key Features:
- Full Text Search: Quick search capabilities across vast volumes of structured and unstructured data.
- Distributed Architecture: Scalable horizontally, suitable for large datasets.
- Real-time Indexing: Immediate data availability for search and analytics post addition.
- Schema-Free JSON Documents: Utilizes JSON for data representation.
- RESTful API: CRUD operations enabled through a RESTful API.
Logstash
Description: Server-side data processing pipeline that ingests data from various sources, transforms it, and exports it to different targets.
Key Features:
- Pluggable Architecture: Supports a multitude of plugins for different data interfaces.
- Data Transformation: On-the-fly data modification capabilities.
- Diverse Input/Output Support: Consumes a range of data types and can export to destinations like Elasticsearch, Kafka, etc.
Kibana
Description: Web-based interface for Elasticsearch data visualization and navigation.
Key Features:
- Data Visualization: Enables creation of graphs, charts, and dashboards.
- Data Exploration: Features like “Discover” for Elasticsearch data probing.
- Dashboard Customization: Build bespoke dashboards for various monitoring aspects.
- Elasticsearch Integration: Facilitates complex queries, filters, and visualizations.
- Management & Monitoring: Inbuilt apps for Elasticsearch cluster management and performance tracking.
Beats
Description: Lightweight data shippers installed on servers for data capture and transport to Logstash or Elasticsearch.
Examples:
- Filebeat: Centralizes log data forwarding.
- Metricbeat: Gathers metrics from systems and services.
- Packetbeat: Collects network data.
- Heartbeat: Monitors uptime.
Summary: The ELK/Elastic Stack is renowned for centralized logging solutions, especially in environments like microservices or cloud-native applications. The integration of its components offers an end-to-end system for data ingestion to storage, search, and visualization. The stack has expanded its functionalities over time, catering to various use cases, including performance monitoring, security analytics, and more.