# Configuring EKS Runtime Monitoring for a standalone account (API)
<a name="eks-runtime-monitoring-configuration-standalone-acc"></a>

A standalone account owns the decision to enable or disable a protection plan in their Amazon Web Services account in a specific Amazon Web Services Region. 

If your account is associated with a GuardDuty administrator account through Amazon Organizations, or by the method of invitation, this section doesn't apply to your account. For more information, see [Configuring EKS Runtime Monitoring for multiple-account environments (API)](eks-runtime-monitoring-configuration-multiple-accounts.md).

After you enable Runtime Monitoring, ensure to install GuardDuty security agent through automated configuration or manual deployment. As a part of completing all the steps listed in the following procedure, make sure to install the security agent.

Based on the [Approaches to manage GuardDuty security agent in Amazon EKS clusters](how-runtime-monitoring-works-eks.md#eksrunmon-approach-to-monitor-eks-clusters), you can choose a preferred approach and follow the steps as mentioned in the following table.


|  **Preferred approach to manage GuardDuty security agent**  | **Steps** | 
| --- | --- | 
|  Manage security agent through GuardDuty (Monitor all EKS clusters)  |  [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/guardduty/latest/ug/eks-runtime-monitoring-configuration-standalone-acc.html)  | 
| Monitor all EKS clusters but exclude some of them (using exclusion tag) |  [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/guardduty/latest/ug/eks-runtime-monitoring-configuration-standalone-acc.html)  | 
| Monitor selective EKS clusters (using inclusion tag) |  [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/guardduty/latest/ug/eks-runtime-monitoring-configuration-standalone-acc.html)  | 
|  Manage the security agent manually  |  [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/guardduty/latest/ug/eks-runtime-monitoring-configuration-standalone-acc.html)  |