Microsoft’s Application Insights is a powerful tool for monitoring the performance and usage of your web applications. As part of the preparation for AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure exam, you should get acquainted with ways of implementing web tests and alerts using Application Insights. In this post, we’ll go through both.
Web Tests in Application Insights
Web tests in Application Insights help you understand the availability of your web application and the responsiveness of your service or API. You can create a web test to monitor your HTTP/HTTPS endpoints and get alerts when your app is slow or not responding.
Implementing a Web Test
To implement a web test, go to Azure portal and follow these steps:
- Open your Application Insights resource.
- Navigate to the “Availability” pane.
- Click on “+Add test” button.
- Fill out the form accordingly. Here, you can specify the test name, test type (URL ping or multi-step), test URL, test frequency, criteria for success, and the test locations.
- Save the changes.
Once the web test is successfully set up, Azure will start to send a request to the endpoint at the frequency you specified, record the response and log the results in Application Insights.
Alerts in Application Insights
Alerts in Application Insights help to draw your attention whenever an unusual event occurs. An alert rule is essentially an automated system that triggers an action (like sending an email or creating an incident) when specific criteria are met. This makes it easy for you to identify and react to potential issues in real time.
Implementing an Alert
To implement an alert, follow these steps:
- In the Azure portal, navigate to the Application Insights resource.
- Click on “Alerts” and then “+New alert rule”.
- Next, you’ll need to configure the “Condition”. Click on “+Add condition”, select the signal type, condition type, and set the threshold values.
- In the “Action Group” section, specify the group or create a new one. The action group represents the list of actions to perform when the alert is triggered.
- Save the changes.
After setting the alert, Azure will monitor your application based on the defined conditions. Whenever the conditions are met, it will trigger the specified actions.
Conclusion
Application Insights provides valuable tools for monitoring and managing your web applications, contributing to developing robust, high-performing applications. Understanding these tools and their implementation is crucial for the AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure exam. However, it is always advisable to gain practical experience and thoroughly understand these concepts, which will not only help you pass the examination but also enhancing your real-world Azure problem-solving capability.
Please note that the codes or scripts are not required in this topic, as Azure portal provides an interactive GUI to create web tests and alerts within Application Insights. You can directly create and manage them online.
Practice Test
True or False: Application Insights allows you to monitor the availability and performance of web applications
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Application Insights is a feature of Microsoft Azure designed for monitoring applications’ performance and availability. It provides actionable insights into your application’s operations.
In creating an Alert rule in Application Insights, which of the following information is needed?
- A. Resource
- B. Condition
- C. Action Group
- D. Alert Details
- E. All of the above
Answer: E. All of the above
Explanation: When creating an Alert rule in Application Insights, the Resource or resources to monitor, Condition or conditions when the alert will trigger, Action Group to notify, and Alert Details for documentation, are all needed.
Which web testing method is not supported in Application Insights?
- A. Unit Testing
- B. Load Testing
- C. Integration Testing
- D. Accessibility Testing
Answer: D. Accessibility Testing
Explanation: Application Insights supports testing for performance, that includes unit, load, and integration testing. It does not have built-in support for accessibility testing.
True or False: Application Insights supports multi-step web tests.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Application Insights supports multi-step web tests that interact with a site in a sequence of actions to test the entire workflow.
What Azure service is necessary to use Application Insights?
- A. Azure DevOps
- B. Azure Machine Learning
- C. Azure Monitor
- D. None of the above
Answer: C. Azure Monitor
Explanation: Azure Monitor logs, also known as Application Insights type logs in Azure Monitor, are required to use Application Insights.
True or False: Automated alerts can be set up in Application Insights for abnormal activities.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Application Insights provides automated alerts which can be set up to notify when there are abnormal activities or performance issues.
What kind of data is typically monitored by Application Insights?
- A. Request rates
- B. Response times
- C. Failure rates
- D. All of the above
Answer: D. All of the above
Explanation: Application Insights monitors request rates, response times, and failure rates amongst other metrics to help developers understand how well a web application is performing.
True or False: You can monitor only web applications hosted on Azure with Application Insights.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: Application Insights is flexible and can be used to monitor both web applications hosted on Azure and elsewhere.
Which of the following can cause an alert to be raised in Application Insights?
- A. Lower than average response time
- B. An increase in failed requests
- C. A slowdown in server response time
- D. All of the above
Answer: D. All of the above
Explanation: Alerts in Application Insights can be raised for more than one condition including lower than average response time, an increase in failed requests and a slowdown in server response time.
True or False: Application Insights can be used for on-premises applications in addition to cloud-based applications.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: Application Insights supports monitoring for both on-premises applications as well as cloud-based applications. Its flexibility and utility extend beyond the Azure environment.
Interview Questions
What is Application Insights in Microsoft Azure?
Application Insights is a feature of Azure Monitor and is a service that allows developers to detect, triage, and diagnose issues in web apps and services. It collects telemetry from applications, whether they’re hosted in the cloud or on-premises.
How can you enable Application Insights for a web application?
Application Insights can be enabled during the creation of a new web application or added to an existing application. This can be done in Visual Studio or from the Azure portal by navigating to the Application Insights resource and selecting the web application.
What are web tests in Application Insights?
Web tests in Application Insights are used to test the availability and responsiveness of a web application. They send requests to the specified URL from multiple locations around the world and record the response times.
Can you customize the web test frequency in Application Insights?
Yes, you can customize the web test frequency ranging from every 5 minutes to once a day.
What are alerts in Application Insights?
Alerts in Application Insights are automatic notifications that are sent when predefined criteria and conditions are met. Alerts help developers to proactively address performance issues, understand what caused them, and take corrective measures.
How can you create alerts in Application Insights?
Alerts can be created in Application Insights from the Azure portal by navigating to the Alerts section, clicking on New Alert Rule, and specifying the conditions and action groups.
Can alerts in Application Insights be integrated with third-party services?
Yes, alerts from Application Insights can be integrated with various third-party services through Webhooks. They can be also sent via email, SMS, or even voice calls.
What is the purpose of the failure tab in Application Insights?
The failure tab helps to observe exceptions, failed requests, and other abnormalities. It enables the tracing of failed requests and the identification of the underlying issues causing the failures.
Can web tests in Application Insights be constructed to simulate user interactions?
Yes, multi-step web tests can be created to simulate a sequence of user interactions with the application.
Which language does Application Insights use to write custom queries for logs?
Application Insights uses a language called Kusto Query Language (KQL) to write custom queries for logs.
How is Application Insights data retention managed?
Application Insights data is retained for 90 days by default. However, data retention can be customized up to 730 days.
Can the telemetry data from Application Insights be exported for further analysis?
Yes, the telemetry data from Application Insights can be exported to a storage account for offline analysis, to an event hub for streaming to third-party services, or to Log Analytics for correlation with other data.
What kind of data does Application Insights collect?
Application Insights collects a range of data, including request rates, response times, failure rates, dependency rates, exceptions, page views, and user and session counts.
What is the role of the ‘Performance’ tab in Application Insights?
The ‘Performance’ tab provides a detailed view of the performance of various operations in the application. It helps in identifying performance bottlenecks and optimization opportunities.
Can Application Insights be used with applications not hosted in Azure?
Yes, Application Insights can monitor applications hosted on-premises, in hybrid environments, or even in other cloud services. It is not restricted to just Azure hosted apps.
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