Why should I install the Datadog Agent on my cloud instances?
If you use AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or another cloud-based metrics provider, installing the Datadog Agent on your instances gives you several benefits, for example:
Better resolution - Cloud providers observe what’s happening from the outside by sampling hosts every 5-25 minutes. Additionally, AWS provides metrics on a per minute basis through their API. Because all Datadog metrics are stored at a 1-second resolution, these metrics are divided by 60 during post-processing. The Datadog Agent captures performance statistics every 15 seconds to provide a more accurate understanding of what’s happening from the hosts’ perspective.
Exposed metrics - Datadog has over 50 metrics enabled by default. More metrics can be added with Datadog’s application-specific integrations.
Integrations - These make it simple to extend the Datadog Agent beyond the native metrics so you can monitor application health, process utilization, and more.
Custom metrics with DogStatsD - With the Datadog Agent on board, use the built-in StatsD client to send custom metrics from your application, allowing you to correlate what’s happening with your application, your users, and your system.
The Datadog Agent is lightweight and fully open source, so you can review the code and even contribute by making a pull request.
Further Reading
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:
