netdata/docs/deployment-guides/standalone-deployment.md

Standalone Deployment

To help our users have a complete experience of Netdata when they install it for the first time, the Netdata Agent with default configuration is a complete monitoring solution out of the box, with features enabled and available.

So, each Netdata Agent acts as a standalone monitoring system by default.

Standalone Agents, without Netdata Cloud

Feature	How it works
Unified infrastructure dashboards for metrics	No, each Netdata Agent provides its own dashboard
Unified infrastructure dashboards for logs	No, each Netdata Agent exposes its own logs
Centrally configured alerts	No, each Netdata has its own alerts configuration
Centrally dispatched alert notifications	No, each Netdata Agent sends notifications by itself
Data are exclusively on-prem	Yes

When using Standalone Netdata Agents, each of them offers an API and a dashboard, at its own unique URL, that looks like http://agent-ip:19999.

So, each of the Netdata Agents has to be accessed individually and independently of the others:

flowchart LR
    WEB[["Multiple
        Independent
        Dashboards"]]
    S1["Standalone
        Netdata
         1"]
    S2["Standalone
        Netdata
         2"]
    SN["Standalone
        Netdata
         N"]
    WEB -->|URL 1| S1
    WEB -->|URL 2| S2
    WEB -->|URL N| SN

The same is true for alert notifications. Each of the Netdata Agents runs its own alerts and sends notifications by itself, according to its configuration:

flowchart LR
    S1["Standalone
        Netdata
         1"]
    S2["Standalone
        Netdata
         2"]
    SN["Standalone
        Netdata
         N"]
    EMAIL{{"<b>e-mail</b>
        notifications"}}
    SLACK{{"<b>Slack</b>
        notifications"}}
    OTHER{{"Other
        notifications"}}
    S1 & S2 & SN .-> SLACK
    S1 & S2 & SN ---> EMAIL
    S1 & S2 & SN ==> OTHER

Configuration steps for standalone Netdata Agents without Netdata Cloud

No special configuration needed.

• Install Netdata Agents on all your systems, then access each of them via its own unique URL, that looks like http://agent-ip:19999/.

Standalone Agents, with Netdata Cloud

Feature	How it works
Unified infrastructure dashboards for metrics	Yes, via Netdata Cloud, all charts aggregate metrics from all servers.
Unified infrastructure dashboards for logs	All logs are accessible via the same dashboard at Netdata Cloud, although they are not unified (ie. logs from different servers are not multiplexed into a single view)
Centrally configured alerts	No, each Netdata has its own alerts configuration
Centrally dispatched alert notifications	Yes, via Netdata Cloud
Data are exclusively on-prem	Yes, Netdata Cloud queries Netdata Agents to satisfy dashboard queries.

By connecting all Netdata Agents to Netdata Cloud, you can have a unified infrastructure view of all your nodes, with aggregated charts, without configuring observability centralization points.

flowchart LR
    WEB[["One unified
        dashboard
        for all nodes"]]
    NC(["<b>Netdata Cloud</b>
        decides which Agents
        need to be queried"])
    S1["Standalone
        Netdata
         1"]
    S2["Standalone
        Netdata
         2"]
    SN["Standalone
        Netdata
         N"]
    WEB -->|queries| NC
    NC -->|queries| S1 & S2 & SN

Similarly for alerts, Netdata Cloud receives all alert transitions from all Agents, decides which notifications should be sent and how, applies silencing rules, maintenance windows and based on each Netdata Cloud space and user settings, dispatches notifications:

flowchart LR
    EMAIL{{"<b>e-mail</b>
        notifications"}}
    MOBILEAPP{{"<b>Netdata Mobile App</b>
        notifications"}}
    SLACK{{"<b>Slack</b>
        notifications"}}
    OTHER{{"Other
        notifications"}}
    NC(["<b>Netdata Cloud</b>
        applies silencing
        & user settings"])
    S1["Standalone
        Netdata
         1"]
    S2["Standalone
        Netdata
         2"]
    SN["Standalone
        Netdata
         N"]
    NC -->|notification| EMAIL & MOBILEAPP & SLACK & OTHER
    S1 & S2 & SN -->|alert transition| NC

Note

Alerts are still triggered by Netdata Agents. Netdata Cloud only takes care of the notifications.

Configuration steps for standalone Netdata Agents with Netdata Cloud

• Install Netdata Agents using the commands given by Netdata Cloud, so that they will be automatically connected to your Netdata Cloud space. Otherwise, install Netdata Agents and then claim them via the command line or their dashboard.

• Optionally: disable their direct dashboard access to secure them.

• Optionally: disable their alert notifications to avoid receiving email notifications directly from them (email notifications are automatically enabled when a working MTA is found on the systems Netdata Agents are installed).