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01 - Azure Monitor Data Platform

Azure Monitor collects data like metrics, logs, and traces from Azure resources and applications into a central data platform for analysis and insights. It collects data from various sources and stores metrics in a time-series database for alerting and logs in a Log Analytics workspace for powerful querying and root cause analysis across all monitored resources. This provides a single view of monitoring data for optimization and issue detection.

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Lucas Mendes Pereira
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184 views4 pages

01 - Azure Monitor Data Platform

Azure Monitor collects data like metrics, logs, and traces from Azure resources and applications into a central data platform for analysis and insights. It collects data from various sources and stores metrics in a time-series database for alerting and logs in a Log Analytics workspace for powerful querying and root cause analysis across all monitored resources. This provides a single view of monitoring data for optimization and issue detection.

Uploaded by

Lucas Mendes Pereira
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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# Azure Monitor data platform

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/data-platform

Enabling observability across today's complex computing environments running


distributed applications that rely on both cloud and on-premises services, requires
collection of operational data from every layer and every component of the distributed
system. You need to be able to perform deep insights on this data and consolidate it
into a single pane of glass with different perspectives to support the multitude of
stakeholders in your organization.

Azure Monitor collects and aggregates data from a variety of sources into a common
data platform where it can be used for analysis, visualization, and alerting. It provides a
consistent experience on top of data from multiple sources, which gives you deep
insights across all your monitored resources and even with data from other services that
store their data in Azure Monitor.

Observability data in Azure Monitor


Metrics, logs, and distributed traces are commonly referred to as the three pillars of
observability. These are the different kinds of data that a monitoring tool must collect
and analyze to provide sufficient observability of a monitored system. Observability can
be achieved by correlating data from multiple pillars and aggregating data across the
entire set of resources being monitored.
Metrics

Metrics are numerical values that describe some aspect of a system at a particular point
in time. They are collected at regular intervals and are identified with a timestamp, a
name, a value, and one or more defining labels. Metrics can be aggregated using a
variety of algorithms, compared to other metrics, and analyzed for trends over time.

Metrics in Azure Monitor are stored in a time-series database which is optimized for
analyzing time-stamped data. This makes metrics particularly suited for alerting and fast
detection of issues. They can tell you how your system is performing but typically need
to be combined with logs to identify the root cause of issues.

Metrics are available for interactive analysis in the Azure portal with Azure Metrics
Explorer. They can be added to an Azure dashboard for visualization in combination with
other data and used for near-real time alerting.

Read more about Azure Monitor Metrics including their sources of data in Metrics in
Azure Monitor.

Logs

Logs are events that occurred within the system. They can contain different kinds of
data and may be structured or free form text with a timestamp. They may be created
sporadically as events in the environment generate log entries, and a system under
heavy load will typically generate more log volume.

Logs in Azure Monitor are stored in a Log Analytics workspace that's based on Azure
Data Explorer which provides a powerful analysis engine and rich query language. Logs
typically provide enough information to provide complete context of the issue being
identified and are valuable for identifying root case of issues.

Note

It's important to distinguish between Azure Monitor Logs and sources of log data in
Azure. For example, subscription level events in Azure are written to an activity log that
you can view from the Azure Monitor menu. Most resources will write operational
information to a resource log that you can forward to different locations. Azure Monitor
Logs is a log data platform that collects activity logs and resource logs along with other
monitoring data to provide deep analysis across your entire set of resources.

You can work with log queries interactively with Log Analytics in the Azure portal or add
the results to an Azure dashboard for visualization in combination with other data. You
can also create log alerts which will trigger an alert based on the results of a schedule
query.

Read more about Azure Monitor Logs including their sources of data in Logs in Azure
Monitor.

Distributed traces

Traces are series of related events that follow a user request through a distributed
system. They can be used to determine behavior of application code and the
performance of different transactions. While logs will often be created by individual
components of a distributed system, a trace measures the operation and performance
of your application across the entire set of components.

Distributed tracing in Azure Monitor is enabled with the Application Insights SDK, and
trace data is stored with other application log data collected by Application Insights.
This makes it available to the same analysis tools as other log data including log queries,
dashboards, and alerts.

Read more about distributed tracing at What is Distributed Tracing?.

Compare Azure Monitor Metrics and Logs


The following table compares Metrics and Logs in Azure Monitor.

Attribute Metrics Logs

Lightweight and capable


Analyzed with rich query
of near-real time
language. Ideal for deep
Benefits scenarios such as
analysis and identifying
alerting. Ideal for fast
root cause.
detection of issues.

Data Numerical values only Text or numeric data


Standard set of
properties including
sample time, resource
being monitored, a Unique set of properties
Structure
numeric value. Some depending on the log type.
metrics include multiple
dimensions for further
definition.
Attribute Metrics Logs

May be collected
Collected at regular sporadically as events
Collection
intervals. trigger a record to be
created.

View in
Azure Metrics Explorer Log Analytics
portal

Application and resource


Platform metrics
logs. Monitoring solutions.
collected from Azure
Data Agents and VM extensions.
resources. Applications
sources Application requests and
monitored by Application
include exceptions. Microsoft
Insights. Custom defined
Defender for Cloud. Data
by application or API.
Collector API.

Collect monitoring data


Different sources of data for Azure Monitor will write to either a Log Analytics
workspace (Logs) or the Azure Monitor metrics database (Metrics) or both. Some
sources will write directly to these data stores, while others may write to another
location such as Azure storage and require some configuration to populate logs or
metrics.

See Metrics in Azure Monitor and Logs in Azure Monitor for a listing of different data
sources that populate each type.

Stream data to external systems


In addition to using the tools in Azure to analyze monitoring data, you may have a
requirement to forward it to an external tool such as a security information and event
management (SIEM product. This forwarding is typically done directly from monitored
resources through Azure Event Hubs. Some sources can be configured to send data
directly to an event hub while you can use another process such as a Logic App to
retrieve the required data. See Stream Azure monitoring data to an event hub for
consumption by an external tool for details.

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