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VictoriaMetrics as a Good Replacement for Prometheus in AWS EKS Setups

In Kubernetes (K8s) environments, Prometheus has long been the default tool for monitoring and alerting. Its rich feature set and active ecosystem make it ideal for tracking metrics across cloud-native applications. However, as AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) setups scale, Prometheus can struggle with storage overhead and resource consumption, especially when monitoring large clusters or handling high cardinality metrics.

VictoriaMetrics is emerging as a strong alternative to Prometheus, particularly for those managing AWS EKS deployments. Its efficient storage engine, lower resource consumption, and compatibility with Prometheus data and query formats make it an attractive option. This article explores why VictoriaMetrics might be a valuable replacement for Prometheus in AWS EKS environments.

Why Consider VictoriaMetrics for AWS EKS?

While Prometheus is highly capable, scaling it in a dynamic, distributed cloud environment like AWS EKS often requires additional infrastructure (e.g., Thanos or Cortex) to handle storage and federation. VictoriaMetrics provides a more streamlined solution by combining powerful metric storage, high performance, and simplicity, making it ideal for EKS users looking to reduce operational complexity and costs.

Key Reasons to Choose VictoriaMetrics over Prometheus in AWS EKS

Storage Efficiency: VictoriaMetrics is optimized for high-performance, low-cost storage. Its storage engine compresses metrics more effectively than Prometheus, leading to lower disk space usage and reduced costs when using AWS storage services (e.g., Amazon EBS or S3).

High Ingestion Rates: VictoriaMetrics can handle higher ingestion rates with minimal resource requirements. In large EKS environments, where thousands of metrics can be generated per second, VictoriaMetrics can sustain high ingestion speeds without the need for complex clustering solutions.

Ease of Scaling: Prometheus setups in AWS often require Thanos or Cortex to manage long-term storage and handle horizontal scaling. VictoriaMetrics offers a simpler scaling path, with single-node scalability that can grow to a multi-node setup if necessary. This makes it particularly suitable for teams looking to avoid the overhead of managing additional components.

AWS S3 Integration: VictoriaMetrics supports Amazon S3 as a storage backend, allowing metrics to be offloaded for cost-effective, long-term storage. This integration is seamless, making it easy to retain metrics without the need for persistent volumes or complicated backup setups.

Setting Up VictoriaMetrics in AWS EKS

To deploy VictoriaMetrics in AWS EKS, you’ll need a Kubernetes setup with the necessary configurations to support metric collection and storage. Below is a high-level guide for deploying VictoriaMetrics and integrating it with Amazon S3 for storage.

Step 1: Provision an EKS Cluster and Enable IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA)

Begin by setting up an AWS EKS cluster if you haven’t already. Using IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA) ensures that your VictoriaMetrics pods can securely interact with AWS services, including S3.

  • Create an EKS cluster with eksctl or the AWS Management Console.
  • Configure an IAM role with permissions to access S3.
  • Associate this IAM role with the VictoriaMetrics service account in your EKS cluster.

Step 2: Deploy VictoriaMetrics in EKS

VictoriaMetrics provides both single-node and clustered deployment options. For most AWS EKS use cases, starting with a single-node setup is often sufficient. Here’s a simple deployment:

  • Create a Kubernetes namespace (e.g., monitoring) for VictoriaMetrics.
  • Deploy the VictoriaMetrics Helm chart or use a Kubernetes manifest to set up VictoriaMetrics as a Deployment in EKS.
  • Configure resource limits and storage classes based on your workload requirements.

Example Helm command for deployment:

bash

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helm repo add vm https://victoriametrics.github.io/helm-charts/

helm install vm-single vm/victoria-metrics-single -n monitoring

 

Step 3: Configure Amazon S3 as the Storage Backend

VictoriaMetrics allows you to store metrics in Amazon S3, providing durable, cost-effective storage for high volumes of time series data. To configure this:

Set environment variables or command-line options in the VictoriaMetrics Deployment manifest to enable S3 as the storage backend:
Yaml

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– name: VM_STORAGE_DATA_PATH

  value: “s3://my-bucket/victoriametrics”

Ensure your IAM role has s3:PutObject, s3:GetObject, and s3:ListBucket permissions on the specified S3 bucket.

VictoriaMetrics will now automatically store metrics in S3, enabling you to scale storage independently of the EKS cluster.

Integrating VictoriaMetrics with Kubernetes Monitoring Tools

VictoriaMetrics is compatible with existing Prometheus exporters and alerting rules, making it easy to integrate with the broader Kubernetes monitoring ecosystem. Here’s how:

Metrics Collection with Prometheus Exporters: VictoriaMetrics can scrape data directly from Prometheus exporters (e.g., node_exporter, kube-state-metrics). This means that your current Prometheus exporters will continue to work seamlessly.

Using Grafana for Visualization: VictoriaMetrics supports PromQL, the Prometheus query language, which allows you to use Grafana for visualizations. Simply add VictoriaMetrics as a data source in Grafana, and you can leverage existing dashboards for Kubernetes metrics.

Alerting and Notifications: You can set up Alertmanager with VictoriaMetrics to handle alerts for your EKS cluster. This provides continuity if you’re migrating from a Prometheus-based setup, as existing alerting rules and notification channels can be reused with minor adjustments.

Performance and Cost Comparison: Prometheus vs. VictoriaMetrics

To illustrate the benefits of VictoriaMetrics in AWS EKS, let’s compare it to Prometheus in terms of resource usage and cost.

Resource Efficiency

  • Memory and CPU Usage: VictoriaMetrics is more resource-efficient than Prometheus. In benchmarking tests, VictoriaMetrics typically uses less memory and CPU to ingest and query large volumes of data, which is ideal for high-load EKS clusters.
  • Storage Requirements: VictoriaMetrics’s efficient storage engine significantly reduces disk usage, resulting in lower storage costs, especially important when using high-performance storage classes in AWS.

Cost Savings

  • Reduced EBS Volume Costs: By offloading metrics to S3, VictoriaMetrics can minimize reliance on costly EBS volumes, which Prometheus typically requires for persistent storage.
  • Fewer Instances: For large clusters, Prometheus may require sharding or federated setups, adding infrastructure complexity and cost. VictoriaMetrics, by contrast, often requires fewer instances to achieve similar performance, particularly in single-node setups with S3 offloading.

Pros and Cons of Replacing Prometheus with VictoriaMetrics in AWS EKS

Pros:

  • Cost Efficiency: S3 storage integration lowers long-term costs.
  • High Performance: Optimized for fast ingestion and querying at large scales.
  • Compatibility: Full support for PromQL and integration with existing tools like Grafana.

Cons:

  • Less Mature Ecosystem: While growing, VictoriaMetrics doesn’t yet have the same breadth of integrations and community plugins as Prometheus.
  • Limited Native Alerting: Unlike Prometheus, VictoriaMetrics requires Alertmanager or other third-party tools for native alerting.

When to Choose VictoriaMetrics Over Prometheus in AWS EKS

VictoriaMetrics is a good choice if you:

  • Run a large EKS environment with high ingestion rates and need efficient storage.
  • Use AWS S3 for long-term storage to reduce EBS costs.
  • Prefer a simplified monitoring stack without the need for clustering add-ons like Thanos or Cortex.

However, if your team heavily relies on Prometheus’ ecosystem and has a low-to-moderate workload, Prometheus may still meet your needs effectively.

Final Thoughts

VictoriaMetrics provides a powerful, efficient alternative to Prometheus for monitoring in AWS EKS environments. With lower resource consumption, seamless S3 integration, and compatibility with Prometheus exporters and Grafana, it’s an appealing choice for AWS users looking to simplify and scale their Kubernetes monitoring solutions.

As monitoring needs grow, exploring alternatives like VictoriaMetrics can help manage AWS costs while maintaining high performance. Whether you’re building a new EKS cluster or optimizing an existing one, VictoriaMetrics is worth considering as a next-generation solution for cloud-native monitoring.

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