# PerfectScale Agent

{% hint style="info" %}
For large clusters, if you are not using automation, use PerfectScale’s recommendations for `psc-exporter` to properly size it.
{% endhint %}

PerfectScale Exporter installed in your Kubernetes cluster provides helpful [metrics](#metrics) for monitoring, reviewing, and alerting on PerfectScale platform behavior. These metrics will instantly detect abnormal behavior and notify you through [alerts](#alerts).

## Metrics

The Exporter presents metrics in the Prometheus format and utilizes two categories of metrics:

1. Counter - the increasing metric
   * [ksm\_scraping\_errors\_total](#ksm_scraping_errors_total)
   * [cadvisor\_scraping\_errors\_total](#cadvisor_scraping_errors_total)
   * [time\_windows\_upload\_errors\_total](#time_windows_upload_errors_total)
   * [auth\_errors\_total](#auth_errors_total)
   * [upload\_policy\_errors\_total](#upload_policy_errors_total)
2. Gauge - system state at a specific time point. This metric can go down and can go up.
   * [ksm\_instances\_scraped](#ksm_instances_scraped)
   * [cadvisor\_instances\_scraped](#cadvisor_instances_scraped)

PerfectScale Exporter takes [Kube State Metrics (KSM)](#ksm-metrics) and [cAdvisor Metrics](#cadvisor-metrics) as inputs and uploads [compressed metrics to PerfectScale SaaS](#perfectscale-metrics) as output.

### KSM Metrics

These metrics monitor the communication between the Exporter and the KSM in your cluster.

#### ksm\_instances\_scraped

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_ksm_instances_scraped`
* **Description**: The number of KSM instances the exporter tried to scrape during the latest scraping round. Usually, you have only 1.
* **Type**: Gauge

#### ksm\_scraping\_errors\_total

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_ksm_scraping_errors_total`
* **Description**: A counter that grows incrementally to keep track of errors during KSM scraping.
* **Type**: Counter

### cAdvisor Metrics

cAdvisor component provides the Exporter with information on specific containers and their resource usage.

#### cadvisor\_instances\_scraped

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_cadvisor_instances_scraped`
* **Description**: The number of cAdvisor instances the exporter tried to scrape during the latest scraping round.
* **Type**: Gauge

#### cadvisor\_scraping\_errors\_total

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_cadvisor_scraping_errors_total`
* **Description**: A counter that grows incrementally to keep track of errors during cAdvisor scraping.
* **Type**: Counter

### PerfectScale Metrics

PerfectScale provides an additional group of metrics that pertains to exporters communicating with the PerfectScale SaaS platform.

#### time\_windows\_upload\_errors\_total

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_time_windows_upload_errors_total`
* **Description**: Total number of failed attempts to upload time windows to PerfectScale.
* **Type**: Counter

#### auth\_errors\_total

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_auth_errors_total`
* **Description**: Total number of PerfectScale exporter authorization errors.
* **Type**: Counter

#### upload\_policy\_errors\_total

* **Metric Name**: `psc_exporter_upload_policy_errors_total`
* **Description**: Total number of errors when updating the upload policy.
* **Type**: Counter

## Alerts

Alerts are useful in immediately informing about the abnormal behavior of the Exporter based on the [metrics](#metrics) described above. 

### How to configure the Alerts

To enable or configure the Alerts, update the Helm values according to your requirements.

#### Helm Values example

```yaml
serviceMonitor:
  enable: true

prometheusRule:
  enable: true
  labels:
    customLabel: "value"
  annotations:
    customAnnotation: "value"
  team: "operations"
  severity: "critical"
  cAdvisorScraping:
    timeRange: "15m"
    threshold: 0.5
```

### Alerts overview

#### PerfectScale Exporter High KSM Scraping Error Rate

* **Alert Name**: PerfectScale Exporter High KSM Scraping Error Rate
* **Description**: Within the last 5 minutes, over 30% of kube-state-metrics scraping attempts have failed.

#### PerfectScale Exporter High cAdvisor Scraping Error Rate

* **Alert Name**: PerfectScale Exporter High cAdvisor Scraping Error Rate
* **Description**: Over a specified percentage of cAdvisor scraping attempts have failed within the specified time range.

#### PerfectScale Exporter Time Windows Upload Error Rate

* **Alert Name**: PerfectScale exporter Time Windows Upload Error Rate
* **Description**: Within 1 hour, three or more time windows upload errors to PerfectScale occurred.

#### PerfectScale Exporter Authorization Errors

* **Alert Name**: PerfectScale exporter Authorization Errors
* **Description**: Within 1 hour, two or more PerfectScale Exporter authorization errors occurred.

#### PerfectScale Exporter Upload Policy Refresh Errors

* **Alert Name**: PerfectScale exporter Upload Policy Refresh Errors
* **Description**: Within 1 hour, two or more errors occurred when updating the upload policy.