Visualize Kubernetes Events: Store in Elasticsearch and Dashboard with Grafana

This article introduces a solution for storing Kubernetes event data in Elasticsearch and visualizing it with Grafana, enabling long‑term retention and powerful analysis for cluster health monitoring.

Prerequisites

Grafana deployed and accessible.

Elasticsearch deployed and accessible.

Kubernetes‑event‑exporter service deployed and running.

Logstash service deployed and running.

Grafana ↔ Elasticsearch Integration

Follow these steps to create a Grafana dashboard that displays Kubernetes events stored in Elasticsearch.

1. Create Dashboard

2. Transform Data

3. Center Align Fields & Select Columns

4. Left‑Align Event Details

5. Sort by Event Time

Tip: The

createdAt

field generated by the event exporter is in UTC; add an 8‑hour offset to reflect the local time.

<code>date {
  match => ["createdAt", "ISO8601"]
  target => "createdAt"
}
ruby {
  code => "event.set('createdAt', event.get('createdAt') + 8*3600)"
}
</code>

Result

Conclusion

By leveraging Elasticsearch’s storage capabilities and Grafana’s flexible visualization, you can enhance Kubernetes cluster monitoring, speed up fault diagnosis, and obtain data‑driven insights for performance optimization, turning monitoring into a proactive tool for maintaining a healthy, transparent environment.