#Microsoft Azure Central Monitoring for your Team #Dashboards #Azure #ContainerInsights #Apps

Full Screen Monitoring

When you install Azure Virtual Machines or Kubernetes Clusters in the Microsoft Cloud, It’s important to monitor your workload and keep your IT department in Control for the Business. Metric alerts in Azure Monitor work on top of multi-dimensional metrics. These metrics could be platform metrics, custom metrics, popular logs from Azure Monitor converted to metrics and Application Insights metrics.

When you have important alerts, you want to take action based on your rules.

Take action on Alerts

Make your Own rules based on Alerts.

IT Department of a company has most of the time different teams with each having it’s own responsibility of workloads in the Microsoft Cloud. For example, the Servicedesk is supporting the Business and they like to see if all the Services are up and running for the Business. The Infrastructure Team wants the same, but on deep level components of the Services like Memory, Network, Storage, CPU, Performance, Availability and more. The Technical Application Team is interested if the application is running and working with all the Interfaces, Databases, and/or Azure Pipelines.

Each Team can build there own Azure Dashboard(s) in the Microsoft Cloud.

Here I Have made an easy example of my Windows Server 2019 Virtual Machines and my Azure Kubernetes Cluster in One Microsoft Azure Dashboard :

You can Start from Azure Monitor Metrics

Or you can Start from the Virtual Machine Blade here.

When you have your Azure Monitor metrics ready with the right information then you can create it in your Azure Dashboard for your Team.

 

Select another Dashboard.

Create your Own Dashboard.

Now we have the first VM with CPU percentage in the Azure Dashboard.

Here I have added More Virtual Machines to the Same Metric Chart.

When you have Azure Kubernetes Cluster to monitor :

From here you can Add Container Insights information into your Azure Dashboard :

Adding Azure Monitor Container Insights of KubeCluster01

The Azure Monitor Container Insights logs for your Dashboard information, with Pin to Dashboard.

 

When you right click with your mouse on the dashboard, you can edit your dashboard with more Azure Resources
from the tile Gallery. Here you can read more about creating your Own Azure Dashboard with Action Rules.

Azure Monitor for containers is a feature designed to monitor the performance of container workloads deployed to either Azure Container Instances or managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Monitoring your containers is critical, especially when you’re running a production cluster, at scale, with multiple applications.
Azure Monitor for containers gives you performance visibility by collecting memory and processor metrics from controllers, nodes, and containers that are available in Kubernetes through the Metrics API. Container logs are also collected. After you enable monitoring from Kubernetes clusters, these metrics and logs are automatically collected for you through a containerized version of the Log Analytics agent for Linux and stored in your Log Analytics workspace.

 

Read here more about Azure Container Insights with Live Logs.

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Installing and Maintaining #Azure Kubernetes Cluster with Multi Pool Nodes (Preview) for #Linux #Winserv Containers

Install AKS-Preview extension via Azure Cloudshell

NOTE ! This is a Preview blogpost, do not use in production! (only for test environments)

To create an AKS cluster that can use multiple node pools and run Windows Server containers, first enable the WindowsPreview feature flags on your subscription. The WindowsPreview feature also uses multi-node pool clusters and virtual machine scale set to manage the deployment and configuration of the Kubernetes nodes. Register the WindowsPreview feature flag using the az feature register command as shown in the following example:

I Have registered the following Preview Features from the Azure CloudShell :

• az feature register –name WindowsPreview –namespace Microsoft.ContainerService
• az feature register –name MultiAgentpoolPreview –namespace Microsoft.ContainerService
• az feature register –name VMSSPreview –namespace Microsoft.ContainerService

This will take a few minutes and you can check the registration with the following command :

az feature list -o table –query “[?contains(name, ‘Microsoft.ContainerService/WindowsPreview’)].{Name:name,State:properties.state}”

When ready, refresh the registration of the Microsoft.ContainerService resource provider using the az provider register command:

 

Creating Azure Kubernetes Cluster

First you create a Resource Group in the right Azure Region for your AKS Cluster to run:

az group create –name myResourceGroup –location eastus

I created Resource Group KubeCon in location West-Europe.

Creating KubeCluster

With the following CLI command in Azure Cloudshell, I created the Kubernetes Cluster with a single node:

$PASSWORD_WIN=”P@ssw0rd1234″

az aks create –resource-group KubeCon –name KubeCluster –node-count 1 –enable-addons monitoring –kubernetes-version 1.14.0 –generate-ssh-keys –windows-admin-password $PASSWORD_WIN –windows-admin-username azureuser –enable-vmss –network-plugin azure

The Azure Kubernetes Cluster “KubeCluster” is created in the resource group “KubeCon” in a view minutes.

Adding a Windows Pool

Adding a Windows Server Node Pool

By default, an AKS cluster is created with a node pool that can run Linux containers. Use az aks nodepool add command to add an additional node pool that can run Windows Server containers.

az aks nodepool add –resource-group KubeCon –cluster-name KubeCluster –os-type Windows –name pool02 –node-count 1 –kubernetes-version 1.14.0

I added the Windows Server Pool via the Azure Portal.

When this has finished, we have an Azure Kubernetes Cluster with Multi node Pools for Linux and Windows Server Containers :

Pools for Linux and Windows Server Containers

The following will be created in Microsoft Azure too :

VNET, NSG and Virtual Machine Scale Set (VMSS)

Azure Monitor for containers is a feature designed to monitor the performance of container workloads deployed to either Azure Container Instances or managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Monitoring your containers is critical, especially when you’re running a production cluster, at scale, with multiple applications.
Azure Monitor for containers gives you performance visibility by collecting memory and processor metrics from controllers, nodes, and containers that are available in Kubernetes through the Metrics API. Container logs are also collected. After you enable monitoring from Kubernetes clusters, these metrics and logs are automatically collected for you through a containerized version of the Log Analytics agent for Linux and stored in your Log Analytics workspace.

Container Insights Monitoring of the Linux Node

Container Insights Monitoring of the Windows Server Node

Here you can read all about Azure Monitoring with Container Insights

Scaling Multi Pool Node AKS Cluster

To Scale your Multi Pool Node AKS Cluster, you need to do this via the Azure Cloudshell CLI.

Here you see the two pools ( Linux and Windows Server)

Scaling up the Windows Server Pool

You can do this with the following command :

az aks nodepool scale –resource-group KubeCon –cluster-name KubeCluster –name pool02 –node-count 2 –no-wait

Scaling

Scaling Succesful after a few minutes

Upgrading Windows Server Pool Instance

When I scaled the Cluster there was a update released by Microsoft.

Windows Server Pool Instances

Just Click on Upgrade

Upgrade is Done 😉

Microsoft #Azure CloudShell for Management tasks #Bash #Powershell #CLI #KubeCtl #Terraform

https://shell.azure.com

Azure Cloud Shell is an interactive, browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It provides the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work. Linux users can opt for a Bash experience, while Windows users can opt for PowerShell.

In this quick overview you will see the possibilities of Microsoft Azure Cloudshell functionalities and tools.

Azure Cloudshell Editor

Azure Cloud Shell includes an integrated file editor built from the open-source Monaco Editor. The Cloud Shell editor supports features such as language highlighting, the command palette, and a file explorer.
This can be handy with JSON and YAML files.

 

When you have your App YAML file for your Azure Kubernetes Cluster on your Cloud drive, you can edit the file online with your browser and save it in the Azure Cloud. I like this editor in the Cloudshell, especially when you are not behind your own laptop or pc and you have to make a quick change.

I have a Kubernetes Cluster installed on Azure and with this editor I can explore my Azure logs, Cache, and config files for the information I need to work with in Bash, Powershell to do my CLI commands for example 😉

For the Powershell Gurus 

Azure PowerShell provides a set of cmdlets that use the Azure Resource Manager model for managing your Azure resources. Learn here more about Azure Powershell

Azure Kubernetes CLI Kubectl

Kubectl is a command line interface for running commands against Kubernetes clusters. kubectl looks for a file named config in the $HOME/.kube directory. You can specify other kubeconfig files by setting the KUBECONFIG environment variable or by setting the –kubeconfig flag.
Read here more about Kubectl

Terraform CLI is Available

What is Terraform?
Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions.
Configuration files describe to Terraform the components needed to run a single application or your entire datacenter. Terraform generates an execution plan describing what it will do to reach the desired state, and then executes it to build the described infrastructure. As the configuration changes, Terraform is able to determine what changed and create incremental execution plans which can be applied.
The infrastructure Terraform can manage includes low-level components such as compute instances, storage, and networking, as well as high-level components such as DNS entries, SaaS features, etc.

The key features of Terraform are:

Infrastructure as Code
Infrastructure is described using a high-level configuration syntax. This allows a blueprint of your datacenter to be versioned and treated as you would any other code. Additionally, infrastructure can be shared and re-used.

Execution Plans
Terraform has a “planning” step where it generates an execution plan. The execution plan shows what Terraform will do when you call apply. This lets you avoid any surprises when Terraform manipulates infrastructure.

Resource Graph
Terraform builds a graph of all your resources, and parallelizes the creation and modification of any non-dependent resources. Because of this, Terraform builds infrastructure as efficiently as possible, and operators get insight into dependencies in their infrastructure.

Change Automation
Complex changesets can be applied to your infrastructure with minimal human interaction. With the previously mentioned execution plan and resource graph, you know exactly what Terraform will change and in what order, avoiding many possible human errors.

More information on Terraform

It’s really easy to Upload or Download your Files.

AzCopy is a command-line utility designed for copying data to/from Microsoft Azure Blob, File, and Table storage, using simple commands designed for optimal performance. You can copy data between a file system and a storage account, or between storage accounts.

More information about Features & tools for Azure Cloud Shell here

Conclusion :

Microsoft Azure Cloudshell is very powerful to work with, creating your infrastructure from the Command Line Interface (CLI) or with JSON / YAML scripts. Some features or commands are not available in the Azure portal and that’s where Azure Cloudshell can help you out. Try the different Azure Cloudshell Tools and look what you like most to use for your work. From here you can work on any device with a browser and do your work. #MVPBuzz

Don’t Miss this Awesome #Microsoft BUILD 2019 Event! #Azure #Cloud #MSBuild

Download the Mobile App here

Seattle May 6-8, 2019

Watch live as technology leaders from across industries share the latest breakthroughs and trends, and explore innovative ways to create solutions. After the keynotes, select Microsoft Build sessions will stream live—dive deep into what’s new and what’s next for developer tools and tech.

 

Watch the livestream here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/build

• Discover and experience new ways to build, modernize, and migrate your applications. Get hands-on experiences with tools like Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that can help you dynamically scale your application infrastructure.
• Quickly and easily build, train, and deploy your machine learning models using Azure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, and ONNX. Uncover insights from all your content—documents, images, and media—with Azure Search and Cognitive Services.
• Join Microsoft for hands-on learning to discover how tools like Visual Studio live share can help you collaborate with your peers instantly.
• Come learn how to build an end-to-end continuous delivery pipeline that is fast and secure with Azure DevOps technologies. Spend less time maintaining your toolset and more time focusing on customer value.
• Understand how frameworks like Xamarin and .NET can help you reach customers on all platforms. Learn how to use the same languages, APIs, and data structures across all mobile development platforms.
• Learn how mixed reality helps you bring your work and data to life when you need it, and where you need it. Start building secure, collaborative mixed reality solutions today using intelligent services, best-in-class hardware, and cross-platform tools.
• Learn to connect your devices to the cloud using flexible IoT solutions that integrate with your existing infrastructure. Collect untapped data and form valuable insights that help you create better customer experiences and generate new streams of revenue.

Book your Microsoft Build 2019 sessions via the BUILD Scheduler

Vision Keynote by CEO Satya Nadella

 

 

Windows Insider Program

Azure DevOps

Azure Monitor

Containers

Have a good look which sessions to follow because there are 431 sessions 👍🚀

JOIN Azure DevOps Community

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12139259/ …

JOIN Containers in the Cloud Community

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13539967/ …

JOIN Azure Monitor and Security Community https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13517115/ …

#Microsoft SQL Always-On Cluster vs #SQL Managed Instance in #Azure

SQL Always-On Cluster in Azure

Before we start with building this SQL Always-On Cluster we already have some Azure SDK Components Active in the Azure Subscription to work with:

• Virtual Network VNET-001 is already installed
• Subnet-SQL and Subnet-Domaincontrollers
• Network Security Groups (NSG) with the right rules active
• Two domain controllers
• Azure Keyvault ( for disk Encryption)

We deployed three Virtual Machines in an Availability Set :

• Primary SQL Node VM01
• Secondary SQL Node VM02
• Witness Server

The deployment was with ARM Template :

VM Deployment

Copy and paste the JSON in your template editor like Visual Studio Code for Example or in the Azure Portal Template builder.

Visual Studio Code

Azure Portal Template

Read more how to deploy ARM Templates via Microsoft Azure Portal here

You also can create a Private or Public Repository on GitHub and store your ARM Templates there in a Library.

GitHub Learning Lab
Learn new skills by completing fun, realistic projects in your very own GitHub repository. Get advice and helpful feedback from our friendly Learning Lab bot.

Create a SQL Server 2014 Always On Availability Group in an existing Azure VNET and an existing Active Directory instance via GitHub :

https://github.com/Azure/azure-quickstart-templates/tree/master/sql-server-2014-alwayson-existing-vnet-and-ad

Configure Always On Availability Group in Azure VM manually :

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/sql/virtual-machines-windows-portal-sql-availability-group-tutorial

Important Tip :

Don’t forget to get the right connectivity between Azure Load Balancer and the SQL Always-On Listener :

## Get the Cluster Resource Information:
Clear-Host
Get-ClusterResource `
| Where-Object {$_.ResourceType.Name -like “IP Address”} `
| Get-ClusterParameter `
| Where-Object {($_.Name -like “Network”) -or ($_.Name -like “Address”) -or ($_.Name -like “ProbePort”) -or ($_.Name -like “SubnetMask”)}

#############################################################

## Set Cluster Parameters:
$ClusterNetworkName = “Cluster Network 1” # the cluster network name (Use Get-ClusterNetwork on Windows Server 2012 of higher to find the name)
$IPResourceName = “IPlistener” # the IP Address resource name
$ListenerILBIP = “10.x.x.x” # the IP Address of the Internal Load Balancer (ILB). This is the static IP address for the load balancer you configured in the Azure portal.
[int]$ListenerProbePort = 80

Import-Module FailoverClusters

Get-ClusterResource $IPResourceName | Set-ClusterParameter -Multiple @{“Address”=”$ListenerILBIP”;”ProbePort”=$ListenerProbePort;”SubnetMask”=”255.255.255.255″;”Network”=”$ClusterNetworkName”;”EnableDhcp”=0}

############################################################

Before you start with your SQL workloads from On-premises Datacenter on Microsoft Azure, have a look if PaaS Azure SQL Managed Instances is something for your Organization with all the benefits.

What is Microsoft Azure SQL Managed Instance?

Managed instance is a new deployment option of Azure SQL Database, providing near 100% compatibility with the latest SQL Server on-premises (Enterprise Edition) Database Engine, providing a native virtual network (VNet) implementation that addresses common security concerns, and a business model favorable for on-premises SQL Server customers. The managed instance deployment model allows existing SQL Server customers to lift and shift their on-premises applications to the cloud with minimal application and database changes. At the same time, the managed instance deployment option preserves all PaaS capabilities (automatic patching and version updates, automated backups, high-availability ), that drastically reduces management overhead and TCO.

Read here more on Microsoft Docs about Azure SQL Services

Conclusion :

When you have a lot of SQL workloads and want to go to Microsoft Azure Cloud Services, analyze your existing workloads well and have a look first at Microsoft Azure SQL Managed Instances. With this Azure PaaS Service, you don’t have to manage the Complete Infrastructure like in a SQL Always-On Cluster (IaaS).

Have a good look at the requirements and Microsoft Data Migration Services can help you out.

SQL Server instance migration to Azure SQL Database managed instance

 

#Azure Monitor in Action Investigating Production Issues Follow @Azuremonitor

Microsoft Azure Monitor in Action

In this episode, Isaac Levin (@isaac2004) joins us to share how the developer exception resolution experience can be better with Azure Monitor and Snapshot Debugger. The discussion talks about what Azure Monitor is and an introduction to Snapshot Debugger, and quickly goes into demos showcasing what developers can do with Snapshot Debugger.

More information about Azure Monitor on Microsoft Docs

What’s is Application Insights?

Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for web developers on multiple platforms. Use it to monitor your live web application. It will automatically detect performance anomalies. It includes powerful analytics tools to help you diagnose issues and to understand what users actually do with your app. It’s designed to help you continuously improve performance and usability. It works for apps on a wide variety of platforms including .NET, Node.js and Java EE, hosted on-premises, hybrid, or any public cloud. It integrates with your DevOps process, and has connection points to a variety of development tools. It can monitor and analyze telemetry from mobile apps by integrating with Visual Studio App Center.

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JOIN the Azure Monitor & Security Community on LinkedIn

Inside Azure Management (Preview) Free E-Book #Azure #Cloud #Management #MVPBuzz

Inside Azure Management

This Awesome Inside Azure Management E-book is a must have with Great content !

Chapter 1 – Intro
Chapter 2 – Implementing Governance in Azure
Chapter 3 – Migrating Workloads to Azure
Chapter 4 – Configuring Data Sources for Azure Log Analytics
Chapter 5 – Monitoring Applications
Chapter 6 – Monitoring Infrastructure
Chapter 7 – Configuring Alerting and notification
Chapter 8 – Monitor Databases
Chapter 9 – Monitoring Containers
Chapter 10 – Implementing Process Automation
Chapter 11 – Configuration Management
Chapter 12 – Monitoring Security-related Configuration
Chapter 13 – Data Backup for Azure Workloads
Chapter 14 – Implementing a Disaster Recovery Strategy
Chapter 15 – Update Management for VMs
Chapter 16 – Conclusion

It’s all about Azure Management in the Cloud written by Great Microsoft MVP’s.
Download the Free Inside Azure Management E-book here

 

Follow the Authors here :  Tao Yang, Stanislav Zhelyazkov, Pete Zerger, and Kevin Greene, along with Anders Bengtsson, CSA for Microsoft.

Thank you for all the work guys and Congrats on this Awesome E-Book ! 😉