---
title: Scale and architect a Synthetics deployment
description: Advanced guidance for scaling and designing Elastic Synthetics deployments, including cross-cluster search support, tagging strategies, and custom dashboards.
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7571/solutions/observability/synthetics/scale-architect-synthetics-deployment
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless
  - Elastic Observability
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Scale and architect a Synthetics deployment
Use these advanced considerations when you use the Synthetics app for large and complex use cases.

## Do not use the Synthetics UI with CCS/CCR

<applies-to>
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
</applies-to>

In complex environments, it’s common to have multiple task-specific Elastic Stack deployments with one centralized overview cluster using cross-cluster search or cross-cluster replication to centralize Kibana dashboards and apps. **Do not use this pattern with the Synthetics UI**. Instead, configure your synthetic monitors directly on the Kibana instance where you want to view and manage them.
You can, however, use Dashboards and the Discover app with CCS to view `synthetics-*` indices.
The Synthetics UI does *not* work with CCS/CCR because it would limit the rich user experience that the Synthetics UI provides. Unlike the majority of Kibana apps, the Synthetics UI relies heavily on state stored in Kibana shared objects in order to provide a rich user experience. Because Kibana saved objects cannot be shared using CCS/CCR, the Synthetics UI doesn't show any user data even if you configure CCS/CCR.

## Use CCS to include monitor data from remote clusters

<applies-to>
  - Elastic Stack: Planned
</applies-to>

Synthetics supports a dedicated cross-cluster search integration that lets you include monitor data from remote Elasticsearch clusters alongside your local monitors. Unlike the CCS/CCR federation pattern described in [Do not use the Synthetics UI with CCS/CCR](#synthetics-no-ccs-ccr), this is a native Synthetics feature that works with Kibana saved objects and the Synthetics UI.
To configure this, go to **Synthetics app → Settings → Remote clusters**. You can select which remote clusters to query and which Kibana spaces the settings apply to. Refer to [Remote clusters](/elastic/docs-content/pull/7571/solutions/observability/synthetics/configure-settings#synthetics-settings-remote-clusters) for details.

## Synthetics UI does not support autodiscovery for infrastructure or Kubernetes monitoring

The Synthetics app is designed for active synthetic checks against user-defined URLs and user journeys. It is not intended for infrastructure or Kubernetes pod monitoring through autodiscovery.
The Synthetics UI only shows monitors that are explicitly created and managed through the [Synthetics UI](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7571/solutions/observability/synthetics/create-monitors-ui) or a [Synthetics project](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7571/solutions/observability/synthetics/create-monitors-with-projects). It has no mechanism for dynamic autodiscovery of infrastructure targets, and it is not designed to ingest or display the high volume of short-lived monitor results that infrastructure monitoring typically produces.
For infrastructure or Kubernetes uptime monitoring, use one of the following approaches instead:
- **[Heartbeat](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/beats/tree/main/reference/heartbeat) with autodiscovery**: Run Heartbeat on your infrastructure and use [autodiscovery](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/beats/tree/main/reference/heartbeat/configuration-autodiscover) to dynamically monitor hosts and pods. Results appear in the [Uptime app](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7571/solutions/observability/uptime).
- **Elastic Agent with the Uptime Monitors integration**: Deploy a standalone Elastic Agent and configure the Uptime Monitors (Heartbeat) integration to collect availability data from your infrastructure. The Uptime app is deprecated as of 8.15 and is not available in Serverless.


## Manage large numbers of Synthetic monitors with tags

When you manage larger numbers of synthetic monitors, use tags to keep them organized. Many of the views in the Synthetics UI are tag-aware and can group data by tag.

## Create custom dashboards

If the Synthetics app doesn't include a UI for your exact needs, you can use [dashboards](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7571/explore-analyze/dashboards) to build custom visualizations. For a complete list of fields used by the Synthetics UI, refer to [Heartbeat's exported fields](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/beats/tree/main/reference/heartbeat/exported-fields).