The Datadog Operator aims to provide a new way of deploying the Datadog Agent on Kubernetes. Once deployed, the Datadog Operator provides:

• Agent configuration validation that limits configuration mistakes.
• Orchestration of creating/updating Datadog Agent resources.
• Reporting of Agent configuration status in its Kubernetes CRD resource.
• Optionally, use of an advanced DaemonSet deployment by leveraging the ExtendedDaemonSet.
• Many other features to come :).

The Datadog Operator is RedHat certified and available on operatorhub.io.

You can also use official Datadog Helm chart or a DaemonSet to install the Datadog Agent on Kubernetes. However, using the Datadog Operator offers the following advantages:

• The Operator has built-in defaults based on Datadog best practices.
• Operator configuration is more flexible for future enhancements.
• As a Kubernetes Operator, the Datadog Operator is treated as a first-class resource by the Kubernetes API.
• Unlike the Helm chart, the Operator is included in the Kubernetes reconciliation loop.

Datadog fully supports using a DaemonSet to deploy the Agent, but manual DaemonSet configuration leaves significant room for error. Therefore, using a DaemonSet is not highly recommended.

See the Getting Started dedicated documentation to learn how to deploy the Datadog operator and your first Agent, and Configuration to see examples, a list of all configuration keys, and default values.

Operator 1.0.0 contains several changes users need to be aware of:

• DatadogAgent CRD has two versions, v1alpha1 and v2alpha1. They are used as a stored version by Operator 0.8.x and 1.0.0 respectively. See this Kubernetes documentation page for more details about CRD versioning.
• v1alpha1 and v2alpha1 are not backward or forward compatible. The Datadog Operator 1.0.0 implements a Conversion Webhook to migrate, though it only supports migrating from v1alpha1 to v2alpha1.
• With the Conversion Webhook enabled, users can run 1.0.0 but continue applying a v1alpha1 manifest. However, they won't be able to retrieve the DatadogAgent manifest as a v1alpha1 object (see the previous item).
• The Conversion Webhook requires a cert manager. See the migration guide in the public or helm chart documentation for more details.
• 0.8.x managed PodDisruptionBudget for Cluster Agent and Cluster Checks Worker deployments. 1.0.0 doesn't, however this is on our roadmap.

• Cluster Agent
• Admission Controller
• Cluster Checks
• Kubernetes Event Collection
• Kubernetes State Core Check
• Live Container Collection
• Orchestrator Explorer
• UnixDomainSocket transport for DogStatsD (and APM if enabled)
• Process Discovery

The Datadog operator also allows you to:

• Configure and provide custom checks to the Agents.
• Deploy the Datadog Cluster Agent with your node Agents.
• Secrets Management with the Datadog Operator.

See the How to Contribute page.

Release process documentation is available here.