This guide walks you through the step-by-step setup of Datadog monitoring on an Amazon EKS cluster using the Datadog Helm chart.

EKS Setup

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• ✅ An EKS Cluster running (1+ master & worker nodes)
• ✅ kubectl configured to access your EKS cluster
• ✅ Helm v3+ installed
• ✅ A Datadog API Key
• ✅ Access to create namespaces and install charts in your cluster

helm repo add datadog https://helm.datadoghq.com
helm repo update

kubectl create namespace <datadog>

kubectl create secret generic datadog-secret \
  --from-literal api-key=<YOUR_DATADOG_API_KEY> \
  --namespace default

Replace <YOUR_DATADOG_API_KEY> with your real Datadog API key.

• ✅ The Datadog Agent is a lightweight daemon that runs on each node in your cluster. Its main job is to collect and report metrics, logs, traces, and other telemetry data to Datadog.
• ✅ Without the Datadog Agent, your EKS cluster and apps remain invisible to Datadog — no metrics, no logs, no APM, no monitoring.
• ✅ Read More About Datadog Agent

helm install datadog-agent datadog/datadog -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/harishgorla5/datadog/refs/heads/main/datadog-default.yaml --namespace default

• Deploy Project 4 for Monitoring

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/harishgorla5/Project04/refs/heads/project4/project04.yaml  

kubectl get pods -n default

You should see pods like:

kubectl logs 

kubectl exec -it <datadog-agent-pod> -- agent status

1. Go to Datadog UI

2. Navigate to:

   • Infrastructure → Containers
   • Kubernetes → Cluster Explorer
   • APM → Services
   • Logs → Live Tail

3. Host Level

4. Container Level

1. Go back to Monitors → New Monitor → Logs.
2. Define the Search Query

service:project4 source:nginx status:404

3. Set Alert Conditions

• Alert type: Log alert
• Trigger: When count is above 5 over the last 5 minutes (or your preference)
• Evaluation window: 5 minutes

4. Set Notification Message

🚨 [NGINX 404 Error] Alert: {{value}} 404 errors detected in project4!

Service: project4  
Source: nginx  
Host: {{host.name}}  
Timestamp: {{timestamp}}

@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@slack-yourchannel

5. Save the Monitor

• Give it a name like: NGINX 404 Error Monitor - project4
• Set priority and tags (e.g., project4, nginx, log-alerts)

6. Below are the references

helm uninstall datadog-agent -n datadog
kubectl delete namespace datadog

• Official Helm Chart Docs
• EKS Setup Guide (AWS)
• Datadog Kubernetes Integration