Added Load Balancing Across Multiple Elasticsearch Nodes section.

Described how to use an ES client node for load balancing.

Removed (broken) kibana4_server role example.

docs/production.asciidoc

@@ -1,13 +1,10 @@
 [[production]]
 == Using Kibana in a Production Environment
-When you set up Kibana in a production environment, rather than on your local
-machine, you need to consider:
+* <<configuring-kibana-shield, Configuring Kibana to Work with Shield>>
+* <<enabling-ssl, Enabling SSL>>
+* <<controlling-access, Controlling Access>>
+* <<load-balancing, Load Balancing Across Multiple Elasticsearch Nodes>>
 
-* Where you are going to run Kibana.
-* Whether you need to encrypt communications to and from Kibana.
-* If you need to control access to your data.
-
-=== Deployment Considerations
 How you deploy Kibana largely depends on your use case. If you are the only user,
 you can run Kibana on your local machine and configure it to point to whatever 
 Elasticsearch instance you want to interact with. Conversely, if you have a large 
@@ -15,35 +12,19 @@ number of heavy Kibana users, you might need to load balance across multiple
 Kibana instances that are all connected to the same Elasticsearch instance.
 
 While Kibana isn't terribly resource intensive, we still recommend running Kibana 
-on its own node, rather than on one of your Elasticsearch nodes. 
+separate from  your Elasticsearch data or master nodes. To distribute Kibana
+traffic across the nodes in your Elasticsearch cluster, you can run Kibana
+and an Elasticsearch client node on the same machine. For more information, see
+<<load-balancing, Load Balancing Across Multiple Elasticsearch Nodes>>.
 
+[float]
+[[configuring-kibana-shield]]
 === Configuring Kibana to Work with Shield
 If you are using Shield to authenticate Elasticsearch users, you need to provide
-Kibana with user credentials so it can access the `.kibana` index. The Kibana user
-needs permission to perform the following actions on the `.kibana` index:
+the Kibana server with credentials so it can access the `.kibana` index and monitor
+the cluster. 
 
-----
-'.kibana':
-      - indices:admin/create
-      - indices:admin/exists
-      - indices:admin/mapping/put
-      - indices:admin/mappings/fields/get
-      - indices:admin/refresh
-      - indices:admin/validate/query
-      - indices:data/read/get
-      - indices:data/read/mget
-      - indices:data/read/search
-      - indices:data/write/delete
-      - indices:data/write/index
-      - indices:data/write/update
-      - indices:admin/create
-----
-
-For more information about configuring access in Shield, 
-see https://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/shield/current/_shield_with_kibana_4.html[Shield with Kibana 4]
-in the Shield documentation.
-
-To configure credentials for Kibana, set the `kibana_elasticsearch_username` and
+To configure credentials the Kibana server, set the `kibana_elasticsearch_username` and
 `kibana_elasticsearch_password` properties in `kibana.yml`:
 
 ----
@@ -51,6 +32,13 @@ To configure credentials for Kibana, set the `kibana_elasticsearch_username` and
 kibana_elasticsearch_username: kibana4
 kibana_elasticsearch_password: kibana4
 ----
+
+For information about assigning the Kibana server the necessary permissions in Shield, 
+see https://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/shield/current/_shield_with_kibana_4.html[Shield with Kibana 4]
+in the Shield documentation.
+
+[float]
+[[enabling-ssl]]
 === Enabling SSL
 Kibana supports SSL encryption for both client requests and the requests the Kibana server 
 sends to Elasticsearch.
@@ -82,6 +70,8 @@ If you are using a self-signed certificate for Elasticsearch, set the `ca` prope
 ca: /path/to/your/ca/cacert.pem
 ----
 
+[float]
+[[controlling-access]]
 === Controlling access
 You can use http://www.elasticsearch.org/overview/shield/[Elasticsearch Shield] 
 (Shield) to control what Elasticsearch data users can access through Kibana. 
@@ -89,6 +79,47 @@ Shield provides index-level access control. If a user isn't authorized to run
 the query that populates a Kibana visualization, the user just sees an empty 
 visualization. 
 
-To configure access to Kibana using Shield, you create one or more Shield roles 
+To configure access to Kibana using Shield, you create Shield roles 
 for Kibana using the `kibana4` default role as a starting point. For more 
-information, see http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/shield/current/_shield_with_kibana_4.html[Using Shield with Kibana 4].
+information, see http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/shield/current/_shield_with_kibana_4.html[Using Shield with Kibana 4].
+
+[float]
+[[load-balancing]]
+=== Load Balancing Across Multiple Elasticsearch Nodes
+If you have multiple nodes in your Elasticsearch cluster, the easiest way to distribute Kibana requests
+across the nodes is to run an Elasticsearch _client_ node on the same machine as Kibana. 
+Elasticsearch client nodes are essentially smart load balancers that are part of the cluster. They
+process incoming HTTP requests, redirect operations to the other nodes in the cluster as needed, and 
+gather and return the results. For more information, see http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-node.html[Node] in the Elasticsearch reference.
+
+To use a local client node to load balance Kibana requests:
+
+. Install Elasticsearch on the same machine as Kibana. 
+. Configure the node as a client node. In `elasticsearch.yml`, set both `node.data` and `node.master` to `false`:
++
+--------
+# 3. You want this node to be neither master nor data node, but
+#    to act as a "search load balancer" (fetching data from nodes,
+#    aggregating results, etc.)
+#
+node.master: false
+node.data: false
+--------
+. Configure the client node to join your Elasticsearch cluster. In `elasticsearch.yml`, set the `cluster.name` to the 
+name of your cluster.
++
+--------
+cluster.name: "my_cluster"
+--------
+. Make sure Kibana is configured to point to your local client node. In `kibana.yml`, the `elasticsearch_url` should be set to
+`localhost:9200`.
++
+--------
+# The Elasticsearch instance to use for all your queries.
+elasticsearch_url: "http://localhost:9200"
+--------
+
+
+
+
+