Monitoring VMs, storage accounts, and networks is critically important for maintaining optimal systems health, diagnosing problems and ensuring the best experience for users. Azure provides VM insights to aid administrators in performance management and deep operational insights across various resources. This article will guide you on how to configure monitoring using Azure’s powerful features.
Setting up VM Insights
Virtual Machine insights provide comprehensive visibility into the performance and dependencies of your VMs. By analyzing performance data, you can make informed decisions and troubleshoot faster.
Please follow the steps below to set up VM Insights:
- Enable VM insights:
- Go to Azure Monitor, click on Virtual Machines from the Insights section.
- Select a VM and click on Enable.
- Configure data sources:
- Once enabled, select Data Sources from the VM insights menu.
- From here, you can configure sources for performance and event data.
- Configure Performance counters and logs:
- From the ‘Data Sources’ tab, configure Windows performance counters and Windows event logs (for Windows VMs).
- For Linux VMs, you can configure Syslog settings.
- View your data:
- Return to Azure Monitor, under the Virtual Machines section, you’ll see a performance view for your VM.
- You can also view the map feature that shows TCP connections from and to the VM.
Monitoring Storage Accounts
Azure Storage services include blobs, Azure Files, queues, tables, and disks. Azure Monitor provides plenty of metrics for these services to track request rates, performance, and usage. These are the steps to configure it:
- Select and set up the monitor:
- Go to Azure Monitor, select Metrics and choose the storage account you want to monitor.
- Add metrics for monitoring:
- Azure Storage supports numerous metrics from latency to transaction type/classification.
- Pick the metrics you require and add them to the scope.
- Create charts and dashboards:
- Create a chart for your metric, specify the timeframe, and add it to your dashboard for easy accessibility.
Networking Monitoring with Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor for networks is a comprehensive solution for monitoring network performance.
Please follow the steps below to configure it:
- Enable Network Monitor:
- Within the Azure portal, navigate to Azure Monitor, select Insights, then Networks to get started.
- Configure settings:
- Select the resources you want to monitor by choosing the pertinent subscription, resource group or location.
- View your data:
- Drill down into individual resources for detailed metrics and logs, such as Network Interfaces, ExpressRoute circuits, etc.
With these tools at your disposal, monitoring VMs, storage accounts, and networks becomes a much more streamlined process. Azure’s features like VM insights, Azure Monitor for storage and networks offer detailed metrics and logs that help in preventive maintenance and troubleshooting, inevitably leading to higher uptime and improved user experience.
Remember, the best way to pass an Azure Admin certification is by understanding the core concepts and applying them. Understanding VM insights and Azure Monitor equips you with crucial knowledge to effectively maintain Azure resources. Always make sure to validate your skills and knowledge through hands-on practice and trying configurations for yourself. It’s the best practical experience you can gain!
Practice Test
True or False: Azure Monitor is the service that collects, analyzes, and acts on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments?
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Monitor maximizes the availability and performance of your applications and services by delivering a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and on-premises environments.
What services does VM insights use to collect performance and dependent data? (Multiple Select)
- A. Azure Monitor logs
- B. Azure Logic Apps
- C. Azure Monitor metrics
- D. Log Analytics
Answer: A, C, D
Explanation: VM insights uses Azure Monitor Logs, Metrics, and Log Analytics to collect performance and dependent data about the virtual machine.
You can use VM insights for real-time performance monitoring and analysis. True or False?
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: VM insights provides features for monitoring performance and analyzing trends in real-time.
In Azure, what can you use to visualize, question, analyze, and alarm on your metrics and log data?
- A. Log Analytics
- B. VM insights
- C. Azure Monitor
Answer: C. Azure Monitor
Explanation: You can use Azure Monitor to visualize, query, route, archive, alarm on the metrics and log data coming from resources in Azure.
Azure Monitor only supports the monitoring of Azure resources. True or False?
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: Azure Monitor can monitor on-premises environments, Azure resources, and other cloud environments.
True or False: VM insights can only monitor Linux-based Azure VMs.
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: VM insights can monitor both Windows and Linux-based Azure VMs.
VM insights require which of the following to be enabled? (Multiple Select)
- A. Azure Monitor Logs
- B. VM Disk Encryption
- C. Log Analytics workspace
- D. Azure Managed Disks
Answer: A, C
Explanation: VM insights require both Azure Monitor Logs and a Log Analytics workspace to function correctly.
True or False: Azure Monitor enables you to diagnose network issues that can affect applications hosted in Azure VMs.
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Monitor provides network performance monitoring and diagnostics for identifying network issues that can affect applications hosted in Azure VMs.
Which Azure service provides analytics on system performance counters, events, and traces, with scalability and durability?
- A. Azure Active Directory
- B. Azure Log Analytics
- C. Azure Logic Apps
- D. Azure Traffic Manager
Answer: B. Azure Log Analytics
Explanation: Azure Log Analytics provides analytics on system performance counters, events, and traces with built-in scalability and durability.
Azure Monitor and VM insights can be used to monitor hybrid environments, including resources hosted on Azure, other cloud providers, and on-premises. True or False?
- True
Answer: True
Explanation: Both Azure Monitor and VM insights provide comprehensive monitoring solutions not just limited to Azure, but extend to hybrid environments, including on-premises and other cloud providers.
Interview Questions
What is VM Insights in Azure?
VM Insights in Azure is a feature that provides comprehensive monitoring of virtual machines showing performance trends and dependencies. This aids with identifying performance bottlenecks and helps with troubleshooting efforts.
What do you need to do to use VM Insights?
To use VM Insights, you must enable it for each VM. This involves installing the Insight’s dependency agent and Log Analytics agent on the VMs.
What is the role of the Log Analytics agent in VM Insights?
The Log Analytics agent collects performance counter data and events from the VM which helps in generating useful insights into the VM’s functioning.
On what platforms are VM Insights available?
VM Insights is available on Windows Server 2012 R2 and later, as well as on Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Red Hat, CentOS, SLES, Oracle and Debian.
How is data represented in VM Insights?
Data in VM Insights is represented in interactive charts and tables, offering an overview of the VM’s operations, including CPU usage, disk operations, memory, network performance, and processes.
How can you view and analyze the data collected by VM Insights?
The data collected by VM Insights can be viewed and analyzed in Azure Monitor Logs, using Kusto query language.
What are the elements monitored by Azure’s VM Insights within storage accounts?
Azure’s VM Insights monitors the performance and capacity of storage accounts data. This includes the read/write latency, the number of input/output operations per second, and the current storage capacity.
Can VM insights monitor the Network Adapter performance?
Yes, VM insights can monitor Network Adapter performance. This includes monitoring transmitted and received data.
Which Azure service do VM insights primarily use to collect and analyze logs?
VM Insights primarily use Azure Log Analytics service to collect and analyze logs.
Can VM insights provide dependency mapping?
Yes, VM Insights can provide dependency mapping. This helps us understand which processes are dependent on certain ports and gives an overall graphical view of all the dependencies.
How do VM insights gather network data?
VM insights gather network data by collecting events and performance counters for network, which can show packet transmission rate, packet error rate, and others.
How does VM Insights assist with troubleshooting performance issues?
VM Insights assists with troubleshooting performance issues by offering interactive queries and charts which can be used to isolate issues related to CPU, memory, network, and dependencies.
Is VM Insight monitoring real-time?
VM Insights monitoring is not real-time. There is a slight delay from the time performance data is generated by the guest OS until it’s available for query in Azure Monitor logs.
Can you set alerts based on monitoring data from VM insights?
Yes, you can set alerts based on the metrics collected by VM Insights to be proactively notified about potential issues.
Can you monitor Multi-NIC virtual machines using VM insights?
Yes, VM insights can monitor multi-NIC virtual machines along with multiple IP addresses.
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