Deployment

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Dynatrace provides a flexible approach to Kubernetes observability where you can pick and choose the level of observability you need for your Kubernetes clusters. This page gives an overview and guided path on the recommended options to cover your Kubernetes observability needs. All deployment options on this page leverage Dynatrace Operator. For dedicated documentation and options for the major Kubernetes distributions, see Distributions.

Observability options

	Observability value	Kubernetes platform monitoring	Kubernetes platform monitoring + Application observability	Kubernetes platform monitoring + Full-Stack observability
Kubernetes platform	Kubernetes resources and topology
	Kubernetes metrics (CPU, memory, network, PVCs), events, and alerts
Applications	Automatic distributed tracing across containers
	Code-level and service insights in application containers
	Profiling and thread analysis
	Live debugging for cloud-native applications		opt-in	opt-in
Infrastructure	Host and process level details
	Host network analysis and topology
	Disk analysis and alerting
Data in context	Data enrichment for cost allocation and access control
License	DPS pricing/packaging	by number of Pods	by number of Pods and sum container memory	by sum host memory
Additional opt-in values
Log analytics	Log collection, data filtering, masking, processing and analytics	opt-out¹ per GiB ingested	opt-out¹ per GiB ingested	opt-out¹ per GiB ingested
Digital experience	Real user monitoring, synthetic checks and session replay		opt-in For details, see DEM	opt-in For details, see DEM
Application Security	Runtime Vulnerability Analytics and Runtime Application Protection		opt-in by sum container memory	opt-in by sum host memory
	Kubernetes Security Posture Management	opt-in by host-hour	opt-in by host-hour	opt-in by host-hour

For new users, the Dynatrace environment is preconfigured to ingest logs, and opting out is managed through log ingest rules.

Rollout and permissions overview

This table gives an overview of all the used components and required permissions for your Kubernetes observability needs. Dynatrace Operator manages the lifecycle of all observability components needed for your Kubernetes observability needs.

	Components and permissions	Kubernetes platform monitoring	Kubernetes platform monitoring + Application observability	Kubernetes platform monitoring + Full-Stack observability
Components	Dynatrace Operator for managing observability components and lifecycle
	Dynatrace Operator webhook for auto-injection and telemetry enrichment
	Dynatrace Operator CSI driver for resource-friendly management of components		(opt-out)
	Observability components	ActiveGate	ActiveGate Dynatrace code modules Dynatrace Log module (opt-in)	ActiveGate Dynatrace code modules Dynatrace host module Dynatrace Log module
	Dynatrace OpenTelemetry collector for extensions	opt-in	opt-in	opt-in
	EdgeConnect for automations	opt-in	opt-in	opt-in
Permissions	Principle of least privilege
	Kubernetes permissions ¹	Kubernetes RBAC	Kubernetes RBAC Privileged workload (CSI driver, opt-out)	Kubernetes RBAC Privileged workload (CSI driver) OS-level permission (Dynatrace host module)

Please see Dynatrace Operator security for more detailed documentation.

Kubernetes platform monitoring

Understand and troubleshoot the health of your Kubernetes clusters.

Kubernetes platform monitoring + Application observability

Ensure workload and microservice health and performance with automatic instrumentation.

Kubernetes platform monitoring + Full-Stack observability

Ensure workload, microservice and infrastructure health and performance throughout your cluster.

Leverage the Dynatrace platform value

The Dynatrace platform offers a variety of apps, analytics and automation functionality to cover your use cases for unified observability and security. You can leverage these capabilities for all the Kubernetes observability data you collect with any of the above modes, such as the ability to:

Explore Kubernetes health and signals in the Kubernetes app
Visualize data with Dashboards
Collaborate and conduct custom analysis with Notebooks
Automate with Workflows
Boost productivity with Dynatrace Intelligence and Generative AI
Forecast trends and prevent issues with Dynatrace Intelligence predictive AI analysis
And much more…

Deployment from Marketplaces

Dynatrace supports deploying Dynatrace Operator from within the following Marketplaces:

Learn more

How it works

Familiarize yourself with Dynatrace components that are deployed in your Kubernetes cluster.

Guides

Learn how you can configure Dynatrace Operator to support specific use cases.

Reference

API reference and configuration options for all Dynatrace components within your Kubernetes cluster.

Dynatrace Operator release notes

See release notes for Dynatrace Operator.