Kubernetes can generate millions of new metrics every day. One of the most challenging aspects of monitoring your cluster’s health is filtering through which of these metrics are important to collect and pay attention to. The best way to approach this challenge is to first understand which high-value signals just about every Kubernetes operator should be concerned with. This is the approach one of our customers, Major League Baseball, took.

We recently surveyed 200 Kubernetes operators about their Kubernetes deployments, including their top challenges and goals as it relates to Kubernetes overall as well as monitoring specifically. Why? We wanted to better understand what capabilities were essential to our monitoring solution that could inform our product roadmap and better equip organizations to tackle their Kubernetes challenges as well as fulfill their Kubernetes goals.

We recently spoke with Major League Baseball (MLB) executives about their Kubernetes deployment, including what challenges they’ve faced and what lessons they’ve learned — particularly as it relates to Kubernetes monitoring. Currently, MLB has about 70 Kubernetes clusters running across 30 ballparks, most of which are running in GKE but with some in EKS.