The Windows Admin Center allows you to expand your on- premises environments by working with hybrid Azure services. Windows Admin Center works with Azure Monitor to collect events and performance counters from a Windows server. You can run analytics and reporting in Azure and then take actions if a certain condition is detected.
Azure Monitor is software- as- a- service (SaaS). All of the supporting infrastructure runs in Azure and is handled by Microsoft. Azure Monitor was created to perform analytics, diagnostics, and monitoring. The core components of the infrastructure, such as collectors, metrics and logs store, and analytics, are run by Microsoft (see Figure 16.27).
Many of the following figures were taken directly from Microsoft’s website. Since many of the figures point out specific issues, most of the figures were taken from Microsoft’s website to demonstrate those points. For more information on Azure Monitor, please check out Microsoft’s website at https://learn.microsoft.com/en- us/azure/ azure- monitor.
FIGURE 16.27 Azure Monitor dashboard
Here are a few things that you can do with Azure Monitor:
■ With Application Insights, you can detect and diagnose issues across applications and dependencies.
■ With VMs and Azure Monitor for Containers, you can compare infrastructure issues.
■ By using Log Analytics for troubleshooting and deep diagnostics, you can monitor data.
■ By using smart alerts and automated actions, you can support operations at scale.
■ By using Azure dashboards and workbooks, you can create visualizations.
Figure 16.28 provides a view of how Azure Monitor works. In the middle are the two fundamental types of data used by Azure Monitor; these are the data stores for metrics and logs. On the left side are the sources that populate the data stores. On the right side are the various functions that Azure Monitor can perform with this collected data.
All the data that is collected by Azure Monitor fits into one of two fundamental types:
■ Metrics are numerical values that express a piece of the system at a specific point in time. They are capable of supporting real- time scenarios.
■ Logs contain other kinds of data, which is arranged into records with different sets of properties for each type.
Data collected by Azure Monitor will appear on the right- hand side of the Overview page in the Azure portal. You may notice several charts that display the performance metrics. Click any of the graphs to open the data in Metrics Explorer, shown in Figure 16.29, so that you can chart the values of various metrics over a given period of time. You can also view the charts or pin them to a dashboard to view them with other visualizations.
FIGURE 16.29 Metrics Explorer
Log data that is accumulated with Azure Monitor can be analyzed by using queries. You can create and test queries by using Log Analytics in the Azure portal (see Figure 16.30).
FIGURE 16.30 Log Analytics
Azure Monitor collects data from a wide variety of sources, including data collected from the following tiers:
■ Application monitoring data: Data about the performance and functionality of the code written, regardless of its platform
■ Guest operating system monitoring data: Data about the operating system on which the application is running
■ Azure resource monitoring data: Data about the operation of an Azure resource
■ Azure subscription monitoring data: Data about the operation and management of an Azure subscription, including data on the health and operation of Azure itself
■ Azure tenant monitoring data: Data about the operation of tenant-l evel Azure services, such as Azure Active Directory
■ Azure resource change data: Data about changes within your Azure resources and how to address and triage incidents and issues
Azure Monitor starts collecting data as soon as you create an Azure subscription and start adding resources. The Activity log records when resources were created or modified, and the Metrics will show how the resources are performing.
Using the Data Collector API, Azure Monitor can collect log data from any REST client, which will allow you to create custom monitoring scenarios.
Azure Monitor includes several features and tools that can provide helpful insights into your applications and other resources. These features include Application Insights, Azure Monitor for Containers, and VM Insights.