Configure monitoring of VMs, storage accounts, and networks by using VM insights

Virtual machine (VM) insights in Azure Monitor is a feature that enables you to gain an in-depth view of your virtual machine’s performance and health. This includes monitoring your VMs, storage accounts, and virtual networks, which is essential in ensuring that your Azure environment is running optimally. Here’s how to configure these monitoring components.

Monitoring Virtual Machines with VM Insights

To monitor Azure VMs using VM insights, follow the steps below:

1. Enable Azure Monitor for VMs:
   • Navigate to the Azure Monitor in the Azure portal.
   • Select “Insights” under the “Virtual Machines” section.
   • Choose the VM you want to monitor and enable the monitoring by installing the required agents.
2. Install Agents:
   • You need to install the Log Analytics agent and Dependency agent on the VMs.
   • For Windows VMs, this can be done using PowerShell or manually by downloading and running the agents.
   • For Linux VMs, use the package management tools specific to the distribution to install the agents.
3. Configure the Log Analytics Workspace:
   • Assign the VM to a Log Analytics workspace where data will be collected and analyzed.
   • Create a new workspace if none exists, or use an existing one to correlate data across multiple resources.
4. Set Up Performance Counters:
   • Define the performance counters you would like to collect data on. These can include processor time, available memory, disk read/write operations, and network usage.
   • Performance counters can be customized as per your requirements in the Log Analytics workspace.
5. View Performance Data:
   • Once the agents are installed and configured, you can view performance data and charts in the Azure Monitor Insights blade.
   • Data such as memory usage, processor utilization, network I/O, and disk throughput will be available.

Monitoring Storage Accounts with Azure Monitor

To monitor storage accounts, leverage Azure Monitor’s storage account metrics and logging capabilities:

1. Enable Storage Metrics and Logging:
   • Go to the Azure Storage account you want to monitor in the Azure portal.
   • In the “Monitoring” section, select “Metrics” or “Logs” based on your needs.
   • Choose the type of data you need to analyze, such as transaction logs for blobs, tables, queues, or files.
2. Set Up Metrics:
   • You can select predefined metrics or create custom metrics based on your requirements.
   • Metrics can include egress, ingress, success rate, latency, and other storage-specific indicators.
3. Configure the Retention Policy:
   • Set how long you want the metrics and log data to be stored in the Azure Monitor Logs.
4. Alert Rules:
   • Define alert rules to notify you of specific conditions or anomalies, such as unusually high access rates or provisioning issues.

Monitoring Virtual Networks with Network Watcher

For monitoring virtual networks, Azure Network Watcher provides tools to monitor, diagnose and gain insights into your network performance:

1. Enable Network Watcher:
   • If not already enabled, turn on Network Watcher in the Azure portal for the region where your resources are located.
2. Set Up Network Performance Monitor (NPM):
   • From Network Watcher, you can configure NPM to monitor the health of your network.
   • NPM can alert you to issues like network latency and can help visualize network topology.
3. Traffic Analytics:
   • Enable traffic analytics to get a richer view of the traffic flowing through your network.
   • Understand traffic flows to and from the internet, subnets, and the regions where your resources are hosted.
4. Diagnostic Tools:
   • Use network diagnostic tools like NSG Flow Logs, VPN Diagnostics, and Connection Monitor to help identify network connectivity issues.

Conclusion

Effectively monitoring VMs, storage accounts, and networks in Azure is vital for maintaining system performance and availability. By setting up VM insights for your Azure VMs, configuring storage account metrics, and employing Azure Network Watcher’s capabilities for network monitoring, you can ensure a proactive approach to managing your Azure resources. The use of these tools will not only provide real-time performance data but also enable you to diagnose issues swiftly and optimize your infrastructure for better efficiency.

It is essential for an Azure Administrator, aiming to be certified with AZ-104, to be adept at configuring these monitoring tools as they are integral to the role of maintaining and managing Azure environments.