---
layout: docs
page_title: 'Autoscaling Plugins: APM'
description: APM plugins provide metric data points describing the resources current state.
---

# APM Plugins

Application Performance Management (APM) tools are used to store metrics about
an applications performance and its current state. The APM plugins are
responsible for querying an APM and returning a time series which will be used
to determine if scaling should occur.