The Datadog Cluster Agent is designed to efficiently gather monitoring data from across an orchestrated cluster, particularly beneficial for large Kubernetes clusters with hundreds or even thousands of nodes. It acts as a proxy between the API server and the node-based Agents, reducing load on the API server while still allowing valuable insights into the state of infrastructure. The Cluster Agent also implements the External Metrics Provider interface to expose metrics from Datadog accounts to Kubernetes, enabling automated use of Horizontal Pod Autoscaling based on real-time health and performance data.