Azure Monitor (logs, alerts, Application Insights)

Monitoring tools

📘Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)

Overview

Azure Monitor is a central service in Azure that helps you monitor and manage your cloud resources. It collects data, analyzes it, and helps you respond to issues before they become critical. Think of it as the eyes and ears of your Azure environment.

Azure Monitor helps organizations ensure their applications and services are healthy, performant, and available.

1. What Azure Monitor Does

Azure Monitor provides three main capabilities:

Collect Data – from applications, virtual machines (VMs), databases, networks, and Azure services.
Analyze Data – find trends, detect problems, and diagnose issues.
Act on Data – set alerts or take automated actions to fix problems.

Data can be metrics (numerical data like CPU usage) or logs (detailed event data).

2. Azure Monitor Components

Azure Monitor consists of three key parts you need to know for AZ-900:

a. Logs

What are logs?
Logs are detailed records of activity in Azure resources. They track events, performance, errors, and operations.
Log Types in Azure Monitor:
1. Activity Logs – Record actions taken on Azure resources (like creating a VM or changing a network).
  - Example: You create a new storage account → Azure records who did it, when, and from where.
2. Resource Logs (Diagnostic Logs) – Provide detailed info about resource operations.
  - Example: A web server logs all requests it receives.
3. Metrics – Numeric data over time for monitoring performance.
  - Example: CPU usage, memory usage, or disk reads/writes.
Where logs are stored:
Logs are sent to a Log Analytics workspace where you can run queries and analyze trends.

b. Alerts

What are alerts?
Alerts notify you when something in your environment needs attention. They are automated and help you respond quickly.
Types of Alerts:
1. Metric Alerts – Trigger when a metric crosses a threshold.
  - Example: CPU usage > 80% for 5 minutes.
2. Log Alerts – Trigger based on log queries.
  - Example: More than 10 failed login attempts in an hour.
3. Activity Log Alerts – Triggered by Azure resource changes.
  - Example: A storage account is deleted or modified.
Actions: Alerts can trigger emails, SMS, push notifications, or automated responses via Azure Logic Apps.

c. Application Insights

What is Application Insights?
It is part of Azure Monitor focused on applications. It helps monitor performance, usage, and errors in apps.
Key features:
1. Performance monitoring – Detect slow requests, page load times, or exceptions in applications.
  - Example: A web app’s response time jumps from 200ms to 2 seconds → Application Insights detects it.
2. Error detection – Identify application errors or crashes automatically.
  - Example: A mobile app crashes frequently for Android users.
3. Usage analytics – See how users interact with your application.
  - Example: Which pages are visited most often or where users drop off.
Integration: Works with web apps, APIs, virtual machines, and even on-premises servers.

3. How Azure Monitor Works Together

Collect data from Azure resources → Logs and metrics.
Analyze data → Use Log Analytics, queries, and dashboards.
Respond → Alerts notify you or trigger automated actions.
Track application health → Application Insights shows app performance, usage, and errors.

In short: Monitor → Analyze → Act → Improve.

4. Why Azure Monitor is Important for AZ-900 Exam

It helps organizations maintain reliable cloud services.
You don’t need to know commands or coding, just understand:
- Azure Monitor collects metrics and logs.
- Alerts notify you when something is wrong.
- Application Insights monitors applications for performance and errors.
Non-IT learners should understand it as a tool to detect, alert, and fix problems in the cloud.

5. Key Exam Points to Remember

Feature	Purpose	Example
Azure Monitor	Collect, analyze, and act on data	Track VM performance
Logs	Detailed activity and resource info	Errors, configuration changes
Metrics	Numeric performance data	CPU, memory, network usage
Alerts	Notify when issues occur	CPU > 80%, failed logins
Application Insights	Monitor applications (web, API, mobile)	Track slow page load, crashes, user behavior
Log Analytics Workspace	Store and analyze logs	Query logs to find errors or trends