Distribute Prometheus metrics scrape load

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:47:22 +0000

Distribute Prometheus metrics scrape load

A good predictor for the size of an Alloy deployment is the number of Prometheus targets each Alloy scrapes. Clustering with target auto-distribution allows a fleet of Alloys to work together to dynamically distribute their scrape load, providing high-availability.

Before you begin

Familiarize yourself with how to configure Alloy installations.
Configure Prometheus metrics collection.
Configure clustering.
Ensure that all of your clustered Alloys have the same configuration file.

Steps

To distribute Prometheus metrics scrape load with clustering:

Add the following block to all prometheus.scrape components, which should use auto-distribution:
Alloy
```
clustering {
  enabled = true
}
```
Restart or reload Alloys for them to use the new configuration.
Validate that auto-distribution is functioning:
1. Using the Alloy UI on each Alloy, navigate to the details page for one of the prometheus.scrape components you modified.
2. Compare the Debug Info sections between two different Alloy to ensure that they’re not scraping the same sets of targets.

Configure Grafana Alloy clustering in an existing installation on Grafana Labs

Distribute Prometheus metrics scrape load

Distribute Prometheus metrics scrape load

Before you begin

Steps