Install Datadog on a SleakOps EKS Cluster

Install the Datadog monitoring agent on a SleakOps EKS cluster using Helm to gain full visibility into application performance and infrastructure health.

Helm vs. Datadog Operator — which guide is right for you?

SleakOps has two tutorials for installing Datadog. They cover different approaches and are not combined — choose one based on your needs:

	This guide (Helm)	Datadog Operator
Setup complexity	Low	High
Lifecycle management	Manual (Helm upgrades)	Automatic (Operator manages the agent)
Auto-instrumentation	No	Yes (admission controller)
Karpenter NodePool tolerations	Manual	Built-in
Best for	Quick monitoring setup, simple clusters	Multi-workload clusters, auto-instrumentation, Karpenter

If you're not sure which to use, start here.

Prerequisites

• A SleakOps EKS cluster with kubectl configured
• A Datadog account and API key

Step 1 — Configure AWS CLI and kubectl

Verify your environment is ready:

aws --version
kubectl version --short

Step 2 — Add the Datadog Helm Repository

helm repo add datadog https://helm.datadoghq.com
helm repo update

Step 3 — Create values.yaml

datadog:
  apiKey: <YOUR_DATADOG_API_KEY>
  clusterName: <YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME>
  logs:
    enabled: true
    containerCollectAll: true
  apm:
    portEnabled: true
  processAgent:
    enabled: true

warning

Do not commit values.yaml with the API key to a repository. Use a Kubernetes Secret or pass --set datadog.apiKey=... directly.

Step 4 — Install the Datadog Agent

helm install datadog-agent datadog/datadog \
  --namespace datadog \
  --create-namespace \
  -f values.yaml

Step 5 — Verify the Installation

kubectl get pods -n datadog

All datadog-agent-* pods should reach Running state within a few minutes.

Installation Options Comparison

Method	Advantages	Disadvantages
Helm (this guide)	Flexible, configurable, standard	Requires Helm knowledge
Datadog Operator	Lifecycle management, CRD-based	More complex to set up
Fargate Logging	No node management	Works only for specific workloads

Next Steps

Need auto-instrumentation, admission controller, or Karpenter NodePool tolerations? See the Deploy Datadog Operator guide for the advanced CRD-based setup.

Best Practices

• Secure the API key: Store it in a Kubernetes Secret rather than directly in values.yaml.
• Configure alerts: Set up Datadog monitors to get notified when infrastructure problems are detected.
• Keep versions updated: Maintain both the Datadog agent and EKS cluster updated to avoid compatibility issues.