---
title: "Set up with Instrumentation Hub setup | Grafana Cloud documentation"
description: "How to setup observability products with Instrumentation Hub"
---

# Set up with Instrumentation Hub

> Note
> 
> Instrumentation Hub is in [public preview](/docs/release-life-cycle/).

Instrumentation Hub is an initial setup and configuration tool within Grafana Cloud. With Instrumentation Hub, you can:

- Have all your application and infrastructure services discovered
- View what is discovered
- Control the data you want to gather and what you want to instrument
- View the status of the zero-code instrumentation process

> Note
> 
> Currently, Instrumentation Hub supports Kubernetes Linux environments.

## Access Instrumentation Hub

To access the Instrumentation Hub:

1. On the main menu, expand the **Connections** menu and then the **Collector** menu.
2. Click **Instrumentation Hub** to view the get started installation page.
   
   [Initial installation page for beginning Alloy installation](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/install-alloy.png)

The next steps for setup and configuration are to:

- Install the Helm chart to install the [Grafana Alloy collector](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/alloy/introduction/), which installs [Beyla](/docs/beyla/latest/) to discover all your Clusters and services and instrument your code.
- Choose what to have instrumented using zero-instrumentation.
- [Activate](#activate-an-observability-product) application monitoring or Kubernetes Monitoring.
- Build the [Knowledge Graph](#build-the-grafana-knowledge-graph), which creates a correlated view of your data.

## Install Grafana Alloy

Click **Install Alloy**, and complete the following settings.

[Installation steps for the Alloy collector](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/alloy-install-steps.png)

1. Select platform: Notice Kubernetes is already selected. This is the only platform that Instrument Hub currently works with.
2. Access token: Either [create](/docs/grafana-cloud/security-and-account-management/authentication-and-permissions/access-policies/create-access-policies/) or [use](/docs/grafana-cloud/security-and-account-management/authentication-and-permissions/access-policies/using-an-access-policy-token/) an API token.
   
   > Note
   > 
   > You will likely not be using an existing token.
   
   To create a new token:
   
   1. Click **Create a new token**.
   2. In the box for **Access Policy Token name**, enter the name of your token.
   3. In the **Expiration date** box, select an option for the expiration date.
   4. Click **Create token**.
      
      The token generates and appears in the token box.
   
   To use an existing token:
   
   1. Click **Use an existing token**.
   2. Paste the token into the **Access policy token name** box.
      
      > Note
      > 
      > The existing token must have the ability to publish metrics, logs, traces, and profiles.
3. Helm charts repository: You need this repository for installation. Copy and paste the code provided into your terminal to either add the repository or update it.
4. To install and run Grafana Alloy, copy and paste the installation commands provided.
5. Click **Test Alloy connection** to ensure the collector is running.
   
   If you receive an error message, verify the output of the Helm command you ran on the previous step. If it was completed successfully, verify that Alloy is listed in the Fleet Management interface. If it’s not listed, verify it has been installed in the target cluster’s `monitoring` namespace by running `kubectl --namespace monitoring get daemonset`.
6. Click **Instrumentation Hub** to open the Instrumentation Hub.
   
   [Instrumentation Hub main page](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/ihub-main.png)

## Begin instrumentation

At the main page, a message indicates what has been discovered. Choose to begin instrumentation for [application services](#instrument-application-services) or [Kubernetes infrastructure](#instrument-kubernetes-clusters).

[The instrumentation hub for instrumenting Kubernetes infrastructure and applications on a Linux Kubernetes platform](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/ihub-first-page.png)

### Instrument application services

Complete the following steps to instrument application services.

1. At the Instrumentation Hub, click **View & Instrument Services** in the **Application instrumentation** tile.
2. To choose what to instrument, complete any of the following:
   
   - Instrument a Cluster: Select a Cluster and click **Select for instrumentation**. This selects the Cluster and the namespaces within it. You can continue this process with another Cluster if you want to instrument multiple Clusters.
     
     [All uninstrumented Clusters and their namespaces selected for instrumentation](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/namespace-selected.png)
   - Instrument the entire namespace: Select the checkbox next to the namespace.
   - Instrument an individual service: Click the name of the namespace. Then select the box next to the service.
   
   To remove your instrumentation choice, click **Clear selection**.
3. Click **Instrument selected**.
   
   > Note
   > 
   > If you have not [activated application services](#activate-an-observability-product), you are interrupted after you click **Instrument selected** or **Select for instrumentation**. You cannot continue instrumentation until you activate the product. To continue, click **Activate** to activate Application services.
4. Confirm your selection at the Review Selection page, then click **Continue**.
5. View the optional settings on the Advanced Settings page.
   
   Notice that the following are included as part of instrumentation:
   
   - R.E.D. Metrics: Turns traces into metrics
   - Service to Service links: For visualizing how your services interact
   
   [Additional options for application data sources](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/app-addl-options.png)
   
   Switch on any of these optional selections:
   
   - Ongoing Instrumentation: To have any new services that are discovered in the future be instrumented after discovery
   - Application Logs: To capture application logs for centralized searching, analysis, and correlation with traces and metrics
   - Process Metrics: To capture metrics about processes that are running the instrumented application
   - Traces: To capture traces for services that are instrumented
   - Profiling: To capture profiles for services that are instrumented
   - Extended Application Metrics: To capture additional application metrics using OpenTelemetry semantic conventions for custom visualizations
6. Click **Instrument now**.
   
   > Note
   > 
   > Instrumentation can take up to 1.5 minutes, depending on the amount of items you have chosen to instrument.
   
   If you have additional services that are not instrumented, you return to the **Instrument** tab. To view the services that are instrumenting or have been instrumented, click the **Manage** tab. Here you can [remove instrumentation](#remove-instrumentation-from-application-services) and [navigate to settings](#application-namespace-settings) of a namespace.
   
   If there are no additional namespaces to be instrumented, you are taken to the [**Manage** tab](#manage-instrumentation-and-settings).

### Instrument Kubernetes Clusters

Complete the following steps to instrument Kubernetes Clusters.

1. Click **View & Instrument Clusters** in the **Kubernetes instrumentation** tile.
2. To choose what to instrument, complete any of the following:
   
   - Instrument a Cluster: Select a Cluster and click **Select for instrumentation**. This selects the Cluster and the namespaces within it. You can continue this process with another Cluster if you want to instrument multiple Clusters.
   
   [A Cluster selected for instrumentation](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/selected-k8s-cluster.png)
   
   To remove your instrumentation choice, click **Clear selection**.
3. Click **Instrument selected**.
   
   > Note
   > 
   > If you have not [activated Kubernetes Monitoring](#activate-an-observability-product), you are interrupted after you click **Instrument selected** or **Select for instrumentation**. You cannot continue instrumentation until you activate the product. To continue, click **Activate** to activate Kubernetes Monitoring.
4. Confirm your selection at the Review Selection screen, then click **Continue**.
5. View the optional settings at the Advanced Settings page.
   
   Notice that Cluster-wide metrics are already selected as part of the settings.
   
   Switch on any of these optional selections:
   
   - [Cluster events](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/kubernetes-monitoring/configuration/manage-configuration/#cluster-events)
   - Node logs, to capture [journald](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-journald.service.html) logs from the Nodes
6. Click **Instrument now**.
   
   > Note
   > 
   > Instrumentation can take up to 1.5 minutes, depending on the amount of items you have chosen to instrument.
   
   If you have additional services that are not instrumented, you are returned to the **Instrument** tab. To view the services that are instrumenting or have been instrumented, click the **Manage** tab. Here you can [remove instrumentation](#remove-instrumentation-from-application-services) and [navigate to the settings](#kubernetes-cluster-settings) of a Cluster.
   
   If there are no additional Clusters to be instrumented, you are taken to the [**Manage** tab](#manage-instrumentation-and-settings).
   
   [The instrumentation hub for quickly instrumenting Kubernetes infrastructure and applications](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/instrumentation-hub.png)

## Manage instrumentation and settings

From the **Manage** tab, you can:

- View and change the settings you chose for any Cluster or namespace
- Remove instrumentation
- Go directly to a Kubernetes namespace or application service by clicking on it after instrumentation

### Application namespace settings

1. At the **Manage** tab for application monitoring, highlight the Cluster.
2. To view the settings for a namespace, perform either of these steps.
   
   - Click the name of the namespace. This shows a list of services within the namespace. Click **Settings**.
   - In the row of the namespace, click the gear icon. This shows the settings of the namespace without showing the list of services.
3. To make changes, switch on or off any optional settings.
4. Click **Apply**.

### Remove instrumentation from application services

You can remove instrumentation from any service in the **Manage** tab.

1. To choose what to remove from instrumentation, you can:
   
   - Select the entire Cluster: Select the Cluster. Then select the checkbox next to the namespace to select all services, and click **Remove Instrumentation**.
   - Select individual services: Select the Cluster, select the checkbox next to the namespace, and click **Remove Instrumentation**.
   - Select individual services: Click the Cluster, click the namespace, select the box next to the service, and click **Remove Instrumentation**.
   
   [Service selected for instrumentation removal](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/ihub-remove-app.png)
   
   To remove your choice, click **Clear selection**.
2. Review your selection at the confirmation screen, then click **Uninstrument**.

### Kubernetes Cluster settings

1. At the **Manage** tab for Kubernetes monitoring, highlight the Cluster.
2. Click **Settings**.
3. To make changes, switch on or off any optional settings.
4. Click **Apply**.

### Remove instrumentation from Kubernetes

You can remove instrumentation from any Cluster in the **Manage** tab.

1. Select the Cluster you want to remove, and click **Remove Instrumentation**.
   
   To remove your choice, click **Clear selection**.
2. Review your selection at the confirmation screen, then click **Uninstrument**.
   
   [Cluster selected for instrumentation removal](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/instrumentation/ihub-remove-cluster.png)

## Activate an observability product

To use a Grafana Cloud observability product for Kubernetes or application monitoring, you must first activate it. Activation allows your use of the product and begins host-hours billing. Even with an activated product, you are not billed until metrics are sent to Grafana Cloud.

To learn more about billing, refer to:

- [Application Observability host-hours pricing](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-applications/application-observability/pricing/)
- [Host-hours pricing for Kubernetes Monitoring](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/kubernetes-monitoring/host-hours-bill-k8s/)

To deactivate, refer to:

- [Disable Application Observability in Grafana Cloud](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-applications/application-observability/pricing/#disable-application-observability-in-grafana-cloud)
- [Deactivate Kubernetes Monitoring](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/kubernetes-monitoring/configuration/activate/#deactivate-kubernetes-monitoring)

## Build the Grafana Knowledge Graph

You can build a correlated view of your data with the [Knowledge Graph](/docs/grafana-cloud/knowledge-graph/) so you don’t need to document your inventory and its entity connections, or guess the health and performance of entities in your system.

Knowledge graph is an underlying technology that:

- Provides an inventory of all system entities and their connections
- Rates the performance and health of connections between services
- Allows you to navigate between infrastructure and application services without losing context