What is an exporter, and name a few common ones (node_exporter, etc.)? [Basic]
Answer
An exporter is a process that exposes metrics for software that does not natively expose Prometheus metrics. Common exporters include node_exporter, blackbox_exporter, mysqld_exporter, postgres_exporter, redis_exporter, and kube-state-metrics.
Technical explanation
Exporters translate system, database, queue, or appliance statistics into Prometheus metrics.
They are useful when you cannot or should not modify the monitored application.
Exporter quality matters because bad label design or expensive collection can create operational problems.
Hands-on example
Example: deploy node_exporter as a DaemonSet to expose CPU, memory, disk, and network metrics for every node. Prometheus scrapes each node_exporter, then dashboards show node_filesystem_avail_bytes, node_cpu_seconds_total, and node_network_receive_bytes_total.
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