Updated March 14, 2023
Introduction to Azure monitor
Azure monitoring provides a comprehensive solution for analyzing, gathering, and working on the telemetry from the on-premise and cloud environment. It aids the user to expand his performance and availability of the applications. The data helps the user understand how the applications are working proactively to find the issues affecting the resources they depend on. It collects the information from the monitoring resources with the help of Azure monitor metrics. Hence a brief note on Azure monitor and its work is discussed in this article.
What is an Azure monitor?
The Azure monitor supports the user to achieve maximum performance in services and applications. As discussed above, the below points stress the necessity and application of Azure monitor. It diagnoses and detects the bug in any application with its feature called application insights. It can compare the infrastructure flaws with container and VM insights. Then it can penetrate the application and monitor data with analytical log details to troubleshoot and work on deep insights. It supports operations at a finite scale by using its automated actions and smart alert systems. Finally, it can develop visualization with workbooks and Azure dashboards.
How does Azure monitor work?
The infrastructure of the Azure monitor has a high-level view. The metrics and logs are placed at the center of the Azure monitor, which works on two important types of information used by the Azure monitor. In the right of the Azure monitor, there are resources to work on the data monitoring events which populate the data stores. On the other end, Azure monitor work on different functions which work on the collected data. It also performs alerting, analysis, streaming, and other actions to its external connected systems.
In simple, it can be termed as: Azure monitor gathers the information from different sources like operating systems, applications, various resources of Azure in the formats of logs and metrics. It can then be processed to work on different functions like visualization, automation, integration, alert systems, and deep analysis.
Metrics are coined as a measurement to view aspects of resources. For example, it helps to check on the number of connections, disk IOPS, CPU utilization, swap space, memory utilization, etc. It is real-time and saved as a finite value with a periodic collection interval. Therefore, it is adapted to the environment better, and the collected logs are displayed as graphs concerning time and performance.
Logs are a collection of records with metadata and different properties that have a simple structure and provide an organized view of the SQL database. It is comprised of numerical information like metrics which has brief text with extra information. Traces and events are the best examples of logs. It is a dash of data that periodically collects the data which needs to be manipulated to view. The user wants to extract and filter the data from the logs by using a native query called kusto query language. It can be used to produce some logical visualization, and it can be pinned to dashboards.
Azure Monitor types collect
The azure monitor can gather the data from different sources, and it ranges according to the application, its operating system, and the services which are executed on it. The Azure monitor gathers data from various tiers.
Application data: The information about the compiled code’s functionality and performance irrespective of any platform is collected from the application monitoring data.
Operating System data: The information about the operation system on which the user is hosting the application is collected in Guest monitoring OS data. It can be another cloud, Azure, or on-premise.
Resources on Azure data: The information about the process of an Azure resource is collected in Azure resource monitoring events.
The subscription on Azure data: Azure’s proper health check process manages the information about the management and operation of subscriptions in Azure.
Tenant monitoring data: The tenant monitoring information gathers the data related to the process of Azure’s tenant-level services like an active directory.
Key requirements
The alert system is one of the key requirements for Azure monitor. It proactively alerts the user when the application is facing critical conditions and requires some corrective actions. The alert rules depend on metrics provided in real-time based on numerical values. In addition, it is based on logs which enable solving complex logic across the data from multiple resources.
Azure monitor application insights
Monitoring the information is useful only if it enhances the visibility of the process in the computing environment. The insights offer a customized monitoring experience for a few particular services. It provides minimal configuration and enhances visibility in the area of critical resources. Application insight always monitors the performance, availability, usage, swap space, and memory allocation of the web application deployed on on-premise or cloud. It structures the powerful data in the Azure platform to offer the user a deep view of the application’s performance. It allows the user to detect errors without any delay and report them to him. The application insight enables different points in development tools and combines them with visual studio to support the process in DevOps.
Azure Monitor Visualizing monitoring data
The visualization in Azure monitor offers tables and charts as effective tools for succinct the monitoring data to display it to a different set of audience. In addition, it has its features to visualize the monitoring data and structure the services of Azure to telecast to the audience. Apart from charts and tables, the monitor has attractive dashboards, workbooks, and power BI to consolidate the performance of the application and display it to the user for better understandings.
Conclusion
Once the Azure subscription is activated, the azure monitor performs and monitors all the addition of resources like web applications and virtual machines. The Azure monitoring begins to collect the data, and the activity logs are recorded when all the resources are developed or edited. The metrics explain the performance of the resources. The diagnostics enable options to allow the user to maximize the availability of the data, and the agent addition option is there to compute the resources to gather info from telemetry from guest OS.
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This is a guide to Azure monitor. Here we discuss how Azure monitors work and the key requirement and types collected. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
