---
title: "Monitor & Visualize"
date: 2021-05-28T13:59:44+01:00
weight: 60
draft: false
---

## Install Grafana and Prometheus

Istio provides a basic sample installation to quickly get Prometheus and Grafana up and running, bundled with all of the Istio dashboards already installed:

```bash
export ISTIO_RELEASE=$(echo $ISTIO_VERSION |cut -d. -f1,2)

# Install Prometheus
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-${ISTIO_RELEASE}/samples/addons/prometheus.yaml

# Install Grafana
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-${ISTIO_RELEASE}/samples/addons/grafana.yaml
```

We can now verify that they have been installed:

```bash
kubectl -n istio-system get deploy grafana prometheus
```

{{< output >}}
NAME         READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
grafana      1/1     1            1           63s
prometheus   1/1     1            1           64s
{{< /output >}}

## Install Jaeger and Kiali


[Jaeger](https://www.jaegertracing.io/) is an open source end to end distributed tracing system, allowing users to monitor and troubleshoot complex distributed systems. Jaeger addresses issues with distributed transaction monitoring, performance and latency optimization, root cause and service dependency analysis etc.

```bash
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-${ISTIO_RELEASE}/samples/addons/jaeger.yaml
```

[Kiali](https://kiali.io/) is a management console for an Istio-based service mesh. It provides dashboards, observability, and lets you operate your mesh with robust configuration and validation capabilities. It shows the structure of your service mesh by inferring traffic topology and displays the health of your mesh. Kiali provides detailed metrics, powerful validation, Grafana access, and strong integration for distributed tracing with Jaeger. You may visit official site to view [features](https://kiali.io/documentation/latest/features/) it offers.

```bash
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-${ISTIO_RELEASE}/samples/addons/kiali.yaml
```

We can now verify that they have been installed:

```bash
kubectl -n istio-system get deploy jaeger kiali
```

{{< output >}}
NAME         READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
jaeger       1/1     1            1           63s
kiali        1/1     1            1           64s
{{< /output >}}

#### Generate traffic to collect telemetry data
Open a new terminal tab and use these commands to send a traffic to the mesh

```bash
export GATEWAY_URL=$(kubectl -n istio-system get service istio-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}')

watch --interval 1 curl -s -I -XGET "http://${GATEWAY_URL}/productpage"
```

Next, we will launch Kiali to visualize application tracing and metrics.
#### Launch Kiali

Open a new terminal tab and launch kiali dashboard by executing the following command

```bash
kubectl -n istio-system port-forward \
$(kubectl -n istio-system get pod -l app=kiali -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') 8080:20001
```

Open Kiali dashboard. Click **Preview / Preview Running Application** in Cloud9 environment.

![Open Kiali](/images/istio/istio_kiali_open.png)

Click the 'Pop Out Into New Window' button

![Popout Kiali](/images/istio/istio_kiali_popout.png)

Navigate to Graph from left panel to view graphical view of application

![Kiali Graph](/images/istio/istio_kiali_graph.png)

Navigate Kiali interface to see powerful tracing and monitoring features

![Kiali Workload Metrics](/images/istio/istio_kiali_metrics.png)
#### Launch Grafana Dashboard

{{% notice warning %}}
Currently Cloud9 IDE does not support previewing multiple running applications. Stop Kiali listener before launching Grafana.
{{% /notice %}}

Next, we will visualize application metrics using Grafana. Open a new terminal tab and setup port-forwarding for Grafana by executing the following command

```bash
kubectl -n istio-system port-forward $(kubectl -n istio-system get pod -l app=grafana -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') 8080:3000
```

Open the Istio Dashboard via the Grafana UI

* In your Cloud9 environment, click **Preview / Preview Running Application**

![Open Grafana](/images/istio/istio_grafana_open.png)

* Scroll to **the end of the URL** and append:

```bash
dashboard/db/istio-mesh-dashboard
```

* Click the 'Pop Out Into New Window' button

![Grafana FullScreen](/images/istio/istio_grafana_fullscreen.png)



You will see that the traffic is evenly spread between <span style="color:orange">reviews:v1</span> and <span style="color:blue">reviews:v3</span>

![Grafana Dashboard](/images/istio/istio_grafana1.png)

We encourage you to explore other Istio dashboards that are available by clicking the **Istio Mesh Dashboard** menu on top left of the page, and selecting a different dashboard.