Parents: Your Centralization Points

Parents are Netdata Agents that collect and store data from other Agents ("Children"). They act as centralization points for your observability data.

How It Works

You designate some Agents as Parents - Configure them to receive streaming data
Children stream their data to Parents - They push metrics continuously
Parents store and process everything - All metrics and logs from all Children
You access Parents for dashboards and alerts - Centralized monitoring interface
Cloud queries Parents when configured - Reduces load on production systems

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Parents give you centralized collection with distributed architecture benefits.

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What Parents Do

Parents are specialized Netdata installations that you can configure to receive, store, and process observability data (metrics and logs) from multiple other systems in your infrastructure.

These Parents give you several core functions:

Receiving and storing metrics and logs from multiple systems
Processing and analyzing your collected data
Running health checks and alerts
Providing unified dashboards across all your systems
Replicating data for your historical analysis

:::info

This distributed yet centralized approach gives you the benefits of both decentralized collection and centralized analysis.

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Why Use Parents

Use Case	Description	Benefits
Ephemeral Systems	Ideal for your Kubernetes nodes or temporary VMs that frequently go offline	You retain metrics and logs for analysis and troubleshooting even after node termination
Limited Resources	Offloads observability tasks from your systems with low disk space, CPU, RAM, or I/O bandwidth	Your production systems run efficiently without performance trade-offs
Multi-Node Dashboards Without Netdata Cloud	Aggregates data from all your nodes for centralized dashboards	You get Cloud-like functionality in environments that prefer or require on-premises solutions
Restricted Netdata Cloud Access	Acts as a bridge when your monitored systems can't connect to Netdata Cloud	You can still use Cloud features despite firewall restrictions or security policies

How Multiple Parents Work

<details> <summary><strong>Click to see Parent architecture options</strong></summary>

mermaid

flowchart TB
    subgraph architectures["Parent Architecture Options"]
        direction TB

        subgraph single["Single Parent"]
            SP[SP]
            SC1[SC1]
            SC2[SC2]
            SC3[SC3]
            SP("**Parent**
All data in one place")
            SC1("Child 1")
            SC2("Child 2")
            SC3("Child 3")
            SC1 --> SP
            SC2 --> SP
            SC3 --> SP
        end

        subgraph multiple["Multiple Parents"]
            MP1[MP1]
            MP2[MP2]
            MC1[MC1]
            MC2[MC2]
            MC3[MC3]
            MC4[MC4]
            MP1("**Parent 1**
Region/Team A")
            MP2("**Parent 2**
Region/Team B")
            MC1("Child 1")
            MC2("Child 2")
            MC3("Child 3")
            MC4("Child 4")
            MC1 --> MP1
            MC2 --> MP1
            MC3 --> MP2
            MC4 --> MP2
        end

        subgraph ha["High Availability"]
            HP1[HP1]
            HP2[HP2]
            HC1[HC1]
            HC2[HC2]
            HP1("**Parent 1**
Active")
            HP2("**Parent 2**
Active")
            HC1("Child 1")
            HC2("Child 2")
            HC1 --> HP1
            HC2 --> HP1
            HC1 -.-> HP2
            HC2 -.-> HP2
            HP1 <--> HP2
        end
    end

    classDef parent fill: #f3e8ff, stroke: #9b59b6, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 10, ry: 10
    classDef child fill: #e8f5e8, stroke: #27ae60, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 10, ry: 10
    classDef subgraphStyle fill: #f8f9fa, stroke: #6c757d, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 15, ry: 15
    classDef innerStyle fill: #f0f8ff, stroke: #87ceeb, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 12, ry: 12
    class SP parent
    class MP1 parent
    class MP2 parent
    class HP1 parent
    class HP2 parent
    class SC1 child
    class SC2 child
    class SC3 child
    class MC1 child
    class MC2 child
    class MC3 child
    class MC4 child
    class HC1 child
    class HC2 child
    class architectures subgraphStyle
    class single innerStyle
    class multiple innerStyle
    class ha innerStyle

</details>

Scenario	Operation	Advantages
With Netdata Cloud	Queries all your Parents in parallel for a unified view	You get a seamless experience regardless of your underlying architecture
Without Netdata Cloud	Your Parents consolidate data from connected systems	You have a local view of metrics and logs without external dependencies
High Availability Setup	Your Parents share data with each other, forming a cluster	You won't lose data if one Parent fails

Technical Implementation

Parents consist of two major components you can deploy:

Metrics Centralization - Uses Netdata's streaming and replication features to centralize your metrics data
Logs Centralization - Uses systemd-journald methodologies to centralize your log data

You can configure your systems to connect to multiple Parents for redundancy. If a connection fails, they automatically switch to an available alternative.

In a high-availability setup, your Parents can form a cluster by sharing data with each other, ensuring all points have a complete copy of all your metrics and logs.

<details> <summary><strong>Click to see how high availability works</strong></summary>

mermaid

flowchart TB
    NC[NC]
    NC("**Netdata Cloud**
Queries available Parents")

    subgraph infrastructure["Your Infrastructure"]
        direction TB
        P1[P1]
        P2[P2]
        C1[C1]
        C2[C2]
        C3[C3]
        C4[C4]
        P1("**Parent 1**
Active")
        P2("**Parent 2**
Active")
        C1("Child 1")
        C2("Child 2")
        C3("Child 3")
        C4("Child 4")
        C1 -->|primary| P1
        C2 -->|primary| P1
        C3 -->|primary| P2
        C4 -->|primary| P2
        C1 -.->|failover| P2
        C2 -.->|failover| P2
        C3 -.->|failover| P1
        C4 -.->|failover| P1
        P1 <-->|sync| P2
    end

    NC <--> P1
    NC <--> P2
    classDef cloud fill: #e8f4fd, stroke: #4a90e2, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 10, ry: 10
    classDef parent fill: #f3e8ff, stroke: #9b59b6, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 10, ry: 10
    classDef child fill: #e8f5e8, stroke: #27ae60, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 10, ry: 10
    classDef subgraphStyle fill: #f8f9fa, stroke: #6c757d, stroke-width: 2px, color: #2c3e50, rx: 15, ry: 15
    class NC cloud
    class P1 parent
    class P2 parent
    class C1 child
    class C2 child
    class C3 child
    class C4 child
    class infrastructure subgraphStyle

</details>

:::tip

Check out our Parent-Child Deployment Guide for step-by-step instructions.

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