Configuration of your lab environment

For the rest of the book, the default lab environment should consist of at least the following:

• A single-node Elasticsearch cluster with at least a 500 MB heap
• A single instance of Kibana connected to the Elasticsearch cluster
• A single instance of Logstash
• The ability to install and run Beats as required

For convenience, you may choose to run all of the above on your local machine. Archives of each component can be downloaded and run whenever needed. Exercises in the book will assume you have Elasticsearch and Kibana up and running. Instructions to start Logstash/Beats instances will be included.

Some of you may also choose to use a cloud-based managed deployment of Elasticsearch and Kibana. Elastic Cloud provides a free trial for those interested in this option.