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Observability · Courses

Elastic Agent: from discovery to expertise

Complete Elastic Agent course: architecture, Fleet and Fleet Server, policies and integrations, data streams and pipelines, Kubernetes, standalone mode, Logstash and Kafka outputs, OpenTelemetry (EDOT), operations and troubleshooting. Reproducible Docker labs.

8 chapters13 lessonsEN
At your pace, through practice.

By the end of this course you will be able to

  • Explain the architecture of Elastic Agent, Fleet and Fleet Server
  • Install Fleet Server and enroll Linux, Windows, Docker and Kubernetes agents
  • Design policies, add integrations and customise ingestion
  • Use standalone mode, Logstash and Kafka outputs, and OpenTelemetry (EDOT)
  • Monitor, upgrade and troubleshoot an agent fleet

🎯 Level : Intermediate👥 Who it is for : System administrators, DevOps and SRE engineers, security teams collecting data into the Elastic Stack

LEARNING PATH

Course curriculum

0Course overview1 lesson

Assessment quiz

  1. Assessment quizQuiz · ⏱ 10 min
1Understanding Elastic Agent2 lessons

Architecture, Fleet, Beats

  1. Elastic Agent: architecture, Fleet and integrationsArticle · ⏱ 4 min
  2. Elastic Agent or Beats?Article · ⏱ 3 min
2Installation and Fleet Server2 lessons

Enrollment and first lab

  1. Install Fleet Server and enroll agentsArticle · ⏱ 5 min
  2. Lab 1: Build an Elastic lab with Fleet Server and a first agentHands-on lab · ⏱ 1 h · Level 2/5
3Policies and integrations2 lessons

Data streams and pipelines

  1. Policies, integrations, data streams and pipelinesArticle · ⏱ 6 min
  2. Lab 2: Collect Nginx logs and customise ingestionHands-on lab · ⏱ 45 min · Level 3/5
4Kubernetes2 lessons

DaemonSet and Kubernetes integration

  1. Elastic Agent on KubernetesArticle · ⏱ 5 min
  2. Lab 3: Monitor a Kubernetes cluster with Elastic AgentHands-on lab · ⏱ 50 min · Level 3/5
5Standalone mode and OpenTelemetry1 lesson

Logstash, Kafka, EDOT

  1. Standalone mode, Logstash, Kafka and OpenTelemetry (EDOT)Article · ⏱ 7 min
6Operations2 lessons

Monitoring, upgrades, troubleshooting

  1. Monitor, upgrade and troubleshoot Elastic AgentArticle · ⏱ 3 min
  2. Lab 4: Diagnose and fix a broken agentHands-on lab · ⏱ 40 min · Level 3/5
7Best practices1 lesson

Elastic Agent in production

  1. Elastic Agent in production: best practicesArticle · ⏱ 3 min

LEARN BY DOING

Use cases & applications

Replace a fleet of Beats

One agent managed from Kibana instead of dozens of configuration files.

Monitor Kubernetes

Logs, metrics and cluster state with a DaemonSet.

Secure endpoints

Elastic Defend and Windows event collection in the same agent.

Move to OpenTelemetry

Collect logs, metrics and traces in OTel format with EDOT.

Recommended prerequisites

Docker: From Discovery to ExpertiseLinux administration: from discovery to expertise

What next?

Logstash: from discovery to expertiseElasticsearch: from discovery to expertiseKibana and Elastic Observability: from discovery to expertise

Frequently asked questions

Is Elastic Agent free?

Yes, it is part of Elastic's free distribution. Some integrations, such as advanced Elastic Defend, depend on the subscription.

Should I drop Beats?

Elastic recommends Elastic Agent for new deployments; Beats remain maintained and useful for highly customised cases.

Is Fleet Server mandatory?

Only for Fleet-managed agents. In standalone mode, the agent ships data directly without Fleet Server.

Can Elastic Agent collect OpenTelemetry?

Yes: it can run the Elastic Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector (EDOT). Check the support level for your version.

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