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Document Metrics API in observability concepts
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23 changes: 22 additions & 1 deletion content/en/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/observability.md
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Expand Up @@ -5,6 +5,11 @@ weight: 55
content_type: concept
description: >
Understand how to gain end-to-end visibility of a Kubernetes cluster through the collection of metrics, logs, and traces.
api_metadata:
- apiVersion: "metrics.k8s.io/v1"
kind: "NodeMetrics"
- apiVersion: "metrics.k8s.io/v1"
kind: "PodMetrics"
no_list: true
card:
name: setup
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -72,12 +77,28 @@ For multi-cluster or multi-cloud visibility, distributed time series databases (

See [Common observability tools - metrics tools](#metrics-tools) for metrics scrapers and time series databases.

### Metrics API

The Kubernetes Metrics API provides CPU and memory resource usage for nodes and Pods. The
`kubectl top` command and components such as the
[HorizontalPodAutoscaler](/docs/concepts/workloads/autoscaling/horizontal-pod-autoscale/)
and [VerticalPodAutoscaler](/docs/concepts/workloads/autoscaling/vertical-pod-autoscale/)
use this API.

Unlike the component metrics endpoints described earlier, the Metrics API is served through the
Kubernetes [API aggregation layer](/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/api-extension/apiserver-aggregation/).
[Metrics Server](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server), the reference implementation,
collects resource metrics from kubelets and makes them available through this API. Your cluster must
run Metrics Server or another implementation that provides the API.

The Metrics API intentionally provides only the resource metrics needed for autoscaling and basic
inspection; it is not a replacement for a full monitoring pipeline.

#### {{% heading "seealso" %}}

- [System metrics for Kubernetes components](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/system-metrics/)
- [Resource usage monitoring with metrics-server](/docs/tasks/debug/debug-cluster/resource-usage-monitoring/)
- [kube-state-metrics concept](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/kube-state-metrics/)
- [Resource metrics pipeline overview](/docs/tasks/debug/debug-cluster/resource-metrics-pipeline/)

## Logs

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3 changes: 2 additions & 1 deletion content/en/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/_index.md
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Expand Up @@ -185,7 +185,8 @@ For more about Custom Resources, see the
### API aggregation layer

You can use Kubernetes' [API Aggregation Layer](/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/api-extension/apiserver-aggregation/)
to integrate the Kubernetes API with additional services such as for [metrics](/docs/tasks/debug/debug-cluster/resource-metrics-pipeline/).
to integrate the Kubernetes API with additional services such as the
[Metrics API](/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/observability/#metrics-api).

### Combining new APIs with automation

Expand Down