Introduction to Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor is a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments. It helps you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identifies issues affecting them and their dependent resources.
Azure Monitor is the foundation of a flexible platform for asking almost any question about your telemetry. It enables you to collect rich diagnostic data, visualize it, and use it to trigger alerts and automate responses.
Key Features
- Data Collection: Collects metrics and logs from all layers of your application and infrastructure.
- Unified View: Provides a single pane of glass for all your monitoring data.
- Powerful Analysis: Enables deep analysis of your telemetry using tools like Log Analytics and Metrics Explorer.
- Actionable Alerts: Configures smart alerts based on thresholds or patterns in your data.
- Visualizations: Creates custom dashboards and workbooks to visualize key performance indicators.
- Automated Responses: Integrates with Azure services for automated remediation.
Getting Started with Azure Monitor
To start using Azure Monitor, you typically need to:
- Enable diagnostic settings for your Azure resources to send data to Monitor.
- Explore your data using Metrics Explorer for time-series metric data.
- Query your log data using Log Analytics for detailed event and diagnostic information.
- Set up alert rules to notify you of critical events.
Metrics in Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor metrics are numerical values that describe some aspect of a system at a particular time. They are lightweight and capable of supporting near real-time scenarios. Metrics can be used to monitor the health and performance of your resources.
Key uses include:
- Monitoring resource CPU, memory, and network usage.
- Tracking application request rates and error counts.
- Visualizing trends and setting up alerts based on metric values.
Logs in Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor logs collect event data and other records. Logs are optimized for complex analysis and can store large amounts of data for extended periods. They are collected from applications, operating systems, and Azure services.
Key uses include:
- Diagnosing problems and finding root causes.
- Identifying trends in performance or usage.
- Correlating events across different services.
- Using the Kusto Query Language (KQL) for powerful data exploration.
Application Insights
A powerful application performance management (APM) service that helps you monitor your live applications. It detects anomalies, diagnoses issues, and understands how users interact with your app.
Learn MoreLog Analytics
A tool in Azure Monitor that helps you edit and run log queries with a rich interface to the data in Azure Monitor Logs. Use it to explore logs, find common patterns, and diagnose problems.
Learn MoreAlerts in Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor alerts notify you and potentially take automated action when critical conditions are detected in your monitoring data. Alerts are based on metrics or log queries.
Configure alerts for:
- High CPU utilization
- Application errors
- Resource unavailability
- Security events
Dashboards and Workbooks
Visualize your monitoring data using Azure Dashboards for a quick overview or Azure Workbooks for interactive reports and analyses. Workbooks allow you to combine text, log queries, metrics, and parameters into rich visual reports.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Azure Monitor provides several tools to aid in troubleshooting:
- Diagnose and solve problems blade for specific resource issues.
- Application Map in Application Insights to visualize dependencies.
- Live Metrics Stream for real-time performance monitoring.
Best Practices
- Define clear monitoring objectives for your applications and resources.
- Leverage a combination of metrics and logs for comprehensive insights.
- Configure alerts judiciously to avoid alert fatigue.
- Regularly review your monitoring data and dashboards.
- Secure your monitoring data and access controls.