What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure is a public cloud computing service created by Microsoft in 2008 that is used for building, testing, deploying, and monitoring applications and services through data centers. The Azure monitor provides platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). It can be used for a plethora of services including virtual computing, storage, networking, analytics, application performance monitoring, and more.
The Azure cloud platform features more than 200 cloud services, web apps, and products that help with your ITOps and DevOps, and can be used with both Microsoft as well as additional third-party software and systems. It also supports diverse tools, programming languages, and infrastructures.
Azure monitor is considered to be the most prosperous commercial cloud vendor. Its easy-to-use design helps make the migration process from cloud and on-premises a bit smoother. It also offers well-thought-out, as well as easily deployable growth solutions with cost-effective results since there is lower administrative overhead when incorporating a cloud into your business.
What is Azure monitoring?
Azure monitoring enables you to have a clear view of your entire Azure infrastructure and services. The data collected by Azure monitoring involve the telemetric data stores containing detailed metrics and logs for virtual machines that come about by using runbook automation.
Metrics consist of numerical values that relate to an aspect of a system at a specific time. However, logs are records that may contain multiple kinds of data that are made up of different qualifiers that can be combined to create robust analysis across many diverse paths.
This enables your enterprise to manage and map multiple applications across different landscapes including cloud and on-premise. It promotes greater security by incorporating streamlined monitoring as well as total visibility of your data in one convenient place.
What are Azure services?
These services are the resources offered by Microsoft Azure such as:
- Azure Active Directory;
- Logic Apps;
- Service Bus;
- Queues and topics;
- Event hubs;
- Event grids; and
- Function apps
Azure Monitoring Data Sources
The following are different types of sources of monitoring data collected by Azure Monitor:
- Application tiers;
- Azure tenant;
- Azure subscription;
- Azure resources;
- Operating system;
- Application code;
- Monitoring solutions and insights; and
- Other services
How does Azure monitoring collect data?
Azure Monitor can collect data from different sources like web applications, services it relies on, operating systems, and from its own resource offerings. The data includes:
- Application monitoring data;
- Guest OS monitoring data;
- Monitoring resource data;
- Subscription monitoring data;
- Custom sources; and
- Tenant monitoring data with information from Azure Active Directory;
Due to the fact Azure is an automatic system, data is collected as soon as you create resources. You have two options to extend the data Azure monitor collects by either enabling diagnostics or adding an agent. For example, Azure SQL database sends full information after enabling diagnostic logging. And for adding an agent, virtual machines can install the Log Analytics agent and configure to send data to a workspace.
By having clear visibility and consolidated data, your agents and administrators can see what’s going on anywhere on Azure. You can be certain that your services are all running properly, and if for some reason they are not, you are able to troubleshoot and resolve issues swiftly using resources.
Azure monitoring examines the performance of IaaS / PaaS / SaaS services that reside on the cloud, or in multiple locations with the same or improved ease as if they were housed in an on-premises data center. Of course, you may need to strategize how to make Azure monitoring work best for your needs, but that is made easier by employing Azure monitoring tools.
Why is Azure monitoring important?
Azure monitoring enables you to detect, diagnose, and correct vast amounts of issues in a timely way. Whether you want to glance over the big picture or if you need to examine a specific area of concern, Azure monitoring has the abilityto synthesize multiple facets of information, show how they are all connected, and help eradicate issues quickly. It also alerts you to configuration alterations and performance exceptions, and has the power to convert data logs into easily workable charts or graphs that will help your team convey their findings.
By doing this, you are able to compare performance over time and anticipate new trends that may help your enterprise by using Azure monitoring. The logs and metric data that are generated can save you valuable time, money, and resources.
What are Azure monitoring tools?
Azure monitoring tools analyze the performance and overall well being of your system. They seamlessly connect each part and they monitor application dependencies and monitor the overall application performance from either on-premises or cloud providers.
These monitoring tools systematically organize services and generate logs from across many different Azure services. This creates an easy-to-navigate centralized space to provide visibility and deliver metrics for applications that do not necessarily utilize only a traditional on-premises server.
Azure monitoring tools maintain the efficiency and safety of your apps. They detect problems in the infrastructure and applications. They locate congestion and gather data on many diverse activities.
By incorporating these monitoring tools into your repertoire, you can quickly identify problems, slowdowns, and issues related to heavy traffic, as well as, locate technological breakdowns. You can use these automation tools to collect, map and envision specific data in real-time. All of this leads to a lower MTTR and can lead to many more satisfied customers.
What are Azure monitoring best practices?
Azure monitoring tools give you the opportunity to benefit from using a single platform to monitor everything at all times. The logs generated by Azure are easy to find, use and extrapolate information from in order to make your system be its absolute best.
Azure monitoring tools best practices include:
- Detecting and diagnosing issues across applications and dependencies;
- Getting into minute details of your entire Azure network by using tested best-practice based dashboards;
- Allowing agents or administrators to segment visibility on a variety of criteria including but not limited to user, geography, technology, business unit, and more;
- Diving deep into monitoring logs that can aid with troubleshooting;
- Creating guidelines that use metrics to determine when you need to automatically add resources when load increases;
- Abandoning resources that have been idle too long;
- Diagnosing potential problems before customers report them;
- Creating visualizations with workbooks and/or dashboards;
- Allowing smart alerts and automated actions to support your operations;
- Collecting data from all Azure monitored sources; and
- Responding to alerts and fixing problems, sometimes before anyone has reported them.
Azure monitoring tools help you optimize the convenience and performance of your services and applications. They solve many problems related to gathering, scrutinizing, and taking action on their findings. By collecting these materials, you can better comprehend how well your applications are doing and what changes you could incorporate to make things even better for your enterprise.
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