---
title: Coordinating node not utilized
description: Describes what AutoOps detects and surfaces with the Coordinating node not utilized insight: Search traffic on one or more coordinating nodes stays well below what you would expect for dedicated coordinators.
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/autoops-insights/tree/main/elasticsearch/coordinating_node_not_utilized
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise: Generally available
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# Coordinating node not utilized
Search traffic on one or more coordinating nodes stays well below what you would expect for dedicated coordinators. Clients might be hitting data nodes directly, leaving coordinators idle and adding coordination work on data tiers.
<note>
  For a complete list of insights, refer to [AutoOps insights](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/autoops-insights/tree/main/elasticsearch).
</note>


## Insight details


| Field     | Value                             |
|-----------|-----------------------------------|
| Component | Elasticsearch                     |
| Severity  | Medium                            |
| Scope     | Cluster                           |
| Domains   | performance, resource-utilization |


## Customization settings

You can customize these settings to adjust when AutoOps detects this event and presents the insight. Refer to [AutoOps event settings](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/tree/main/deploy-manage/monitor/autoops/ec-autoops-event-settings) for details.
The default customization settings are:

| Setting                                               | Type    | Default |
|-------------------------------------------------------|---------|---------|
| Minimum search completed count on a coordinating node | Integer | 1000    |


## Example: What you might see in AutoOps

The following is an example of what you might see when this insight is triggered. Real insights use live data and links from your deployment or cluster.

### The search requests count is low on the following coordinating node/s: `es-data-01`


#### What was detected

_No description available._

#### Recommendations

<note>
  AutoOps shows different recommendations depending on how their conditions match your deployment or cluster.
</note>

<dropdown title="Check request routing">
  **Condition**: Always shown for this insight.Verify applications send requests to coordinating nodes, not directly to data nodes.
</dropdown>


#### Background and impact

The search request count is 12. There is a possibility that this coordinating node is not being utilized properly, which might affect the overall search performance.
The job of a coordinating node is to load balance indexing and search queries across the data nodes. A low search requests count indicates that the client applications are sending only a low proportion of their search requests to the coordinating node.
If you decide to use coordinating nodes, then your client applications should send all search requests to the coordinating node(s), load balancing across them if there is more than one coordinating node in the cluster.