Monitoring Azure Cosmos DB
Effective monitoring is crucial for understanding the performance, availability, and health of your Azure Cosmos DB resources. This tutorial guides you through the essential monitoring capabilities available for Azure Cosmos DB.
Key Monitoring Metrics and Logs
Azure Cosmos DB provides a rich set of metrics and diagnostic logs that offer deep insights into your database's operations. These include:
- Request Units (RUs) Consumed: Track RUs per partition and for the entire database/container to manage costs and performance.
- Latency: Monitor average and maximum latency for read and write operations.
- Throughput: Observe provisioned vs. consumed throughput to identify bottlenecks or over-provisioning.
- Storage: Track the amount of data stored.
- Availability: Monitor the uptime and error rates of your endpoints.
- Diagnostic Logs: Capture detailed information about operations, errors, and performance events for in-depth analysis and troubleshooting.
Using Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor is the central hub for monitoring Azure Cosmos DB. You can leverage its features to:
- Visualize Metrics: Create custom dashboards to display key performance indicators (KPIs) in real-time.
- Set Alerts: Configure alerts based on specific metric thresholds to be notified of potential issues promptly.
- Analyze Logs: Query diagnostic logs using Kusto Query Language (KQL) for detailed troubleshooting.
Setting up Diagnostic Settings
To collect logs and metrics, you need to configure diagnostic settings for your Azure Cosmos DB account:
- Navigate to your Azure Cosmos DB account in the Azure portal.
- Under "Monitoring" in the left-hand menu, select "Diagnostic settings".
- Click "+ Add diagnostic setting".
- Choose the categories of logs and metrics you want to collect (e.g.,
AllMetrics,DataRequests,QueryRequests). - Select a destination for your logs, such as a Log Analytics workspace, Storage account, or Event Hub.
- Click "Save".
Creating Custom Dashboards and Alerts
Once data is flowing into your chosen destination (e.g., Log Analytics), you can create:
- Dashboards: Pin charts from the "Metrics" blade or KQL query results to a dashboard for a unified view.
- Alert Rules: Go to "Alerts" -> "New alert rule" and define conditions based on your Cosmos DB metrics. For example, an alert for when RU consumption exceeds 90% of the provisioned throughput.
Monitoring Best Practices
- Regularly review your key metrics to proactively identify performance degradation.
- Set up alerts for critical thresholds like high RU consumption, increased latency, or error rates.
- Use diagnostic logs for root cause analysis of issues.
- Monitor costs by keeping an eye on RU consumption and provisioned throughput.
- Leverage partitioning strategies effectively to distribute load and improve monitoring granularity.