Monitoring Windows Azure

I am not aware of a monitoring API provided by the Azure Cloud to get hypervisor based "external" metrics of virtual machines there (like e.g. CloudWatch). If such an API becomes available we will be happy to create such a sensor.

You can of course use all standard sensors of PRTG to monitor services inside the Azure Cloud just like you can monitor any other server/service.

Hello,

thanks in advance for your quick answer.

Microsoft has a public REST API to monitor Windows Azure. The information is at the following link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff800682.aspx

Sending a GET request with certain content header variables gets a response with an XML, which informs the state of deployed platform elements.

I am doing tests with "HTTP XML/REST Value" sensor but I can't specify in the query any content header values that are necesary to receive the XML.

¿Is there a way to specify those values in the header thru that sensor?

Thanks

Hi Santiago,

What exact (name and value) http headers are needed here? If you can provide me with that information, we can do some one-on-one testing.

You can send this to my personal email address, to be found here in the left pane under "send an email".

Regards,

Yes, there is a custom sensor available on Google Code

"This sensor Gets the XML result from a Service Management Resource of an Azure account. "

Set up is a little tricky due to the use of certificates in the Azure cloud.

This should be a #1 feature request for PRTG with the way enterprises are conducting hybrid IT(Cloud/OnPrem). There are mobile apps that give you basic subscription usage etc.

This sensor is no longer supported. Is there any new solution?

Dear Jaroslav

I am sorry, considering the current Azure share in the cloud market, and the complexity of the Azure API authentication process, we focus on other PRTG features.

So does this mean that Paessler is not working on or planning to work on any Azure specific Monitoring Features for PRTG?

Dear rogersinel

We are currently not working on, nor do we have plans yet to implement Azure sensors. If the market share of Azure changes, a new decision will be made by us.

Your kidding me right? Microsoft Azure with not enough market share? They had 11% at the time you posted this which is a significant share and they are quickly catching up. https://rcpmag.com/articles/2016/08/02/microsoft-behind-aws-in-cloud.aspx https://mspoweruser.com/cio-surey-finds-microsoft-azure-will-overtake-amazon-aws-infrastructure-service/

Im not sure how you can so easily dismiss Azure when it is growing so fast and the number 2 in the space. It is responses like this from a vendor that send providers like us searching for a new solution/partner..

Market share of Azure? They are number 2 and held 11% of the market at the time you posted that. It is growing all the time too.

Dear ASMGi

We see the increasing share and put Azure sensors on our 'wish list'. We are analyzing the situation.

We've at my company written several custom sensor for Azure, what are people looking for? Currently we're monitoring things like App services, Deployments, Billing, Services buses, storage, Azure SQL etc.

This question has been going on for far too long. It is simply unacceptable that PRTG doesn't have capabilities to monitor Azure at this point. We are using Azure more and more every day and a large portion of our infrastructure is moving to Azure. If Paessler doesn't step up and add Azure support soon -- I will be looking for another monitoring solution that does.

Mattias - I personally am looking for the ability to monitor all aspects of Azure. Everything you mentioned is on my wish list. Any chance you'd consider releasing the code open source, or if not, maybe consider selling it?

Please add Azure and AWS monitoring they are the largest two hosting companies and is growing each year. Don't get me wrong I love PRTG but your Cloud monitoring is somewhat lacking You should make sensors to monitor the Azure Site2Site Traffic, Backups, VM stats

We are still investigating our options to monitor Azure. It is a bit more complicated than anticipated.

Any news about sensors for Azure services? We are having more requests from our customers to support this kind of monitoring. It's specially about Azure AppService webapps and SQL Databases.

Azure Sensors are on our 2019 Road Map :) Stay tuned!

PRTGapi | Feature Requests | WMI Issues | SNMP Issues

Kind regards,
Stephan Linke, Tech Support Team

Hi Stephan. We are very excited to see what you guys comes up with. At this moment, can you tell us which kind of sensors you are planning to deliver? Azure Web Apps, SQL database instances and Azure backup are things we would be happy to see sensors for.

Regards Michael Jakobsen

Hi Michael,

I'm afraid that I can't provide further information about which sensors will be implemented at this time.

Thank you for your understanding!

Kind regards,
Andreas Günther
Tech Support, Paessler AG

@Andreas any rough timeline, like if it's Q3 or Q4?

Just like Michael says App Services, SQL and Backups are really important, but also common services for us are Storage Tables/Queues/Blob/File, CosmosDB, ServiceBus, Traffic managers, VMs, etc.,

We've written our own custom sensors for a few, i.e. this is an example below of some of the things we collect for App Services, is that roughly what you'll be offering or is it more if service is up/down?

Hi Mattias,

I'm sorry, I don't have any further information about the exact plans. I'll see what I can find out, please bear with me.

Kind regards,
Andreas Günther
Tech Support, Paessler AG

Hi again,

So I just had a short talk with our product manager. The current next sensors on our roadmap which we are focusing on are the following:

- AWS Cost sensor
- Office 365 sensor
- Azure Cost sensor
- Azure SQL sensor

At the moment we're planning the releases of these sensors in the area of the late Q4 2019 / Q1 2020.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Andreas Günther
Tech Support, Paessler AG

Any news on Azure sensors? We are having more and more customers requesting this functionality.

Hi Michael,

Sorry I don't have new information, when these sensor will be implemented in PRTG.
We hope to release the sensors in Q2 2020.
Please bear with us.

Kind regards,
Marijan Horsky, Team Tech Support

I have to say I've been monitoring this thread for some time. We are a long time customer of PRTG but given that some 75% of our resources now resided in Azure this on-prem only solution is of little use to us. Unless PRTG can give us a guarateed release date for Azure based sensors, we're going to have to find another cloud based solution that can. This would be a real shame as otherwise, PRTG is an excellent product. I stuggle to undestand why you guys haven't been all over this given the Azure market share these days.

@Marijan so the Azure sensors coming Q2 are:

• Azure Cost sensor
• Azure SQL sensor

?

It's been a year since I commented last, most common Azure related requests from our customers are

• App Service
  • Websites
  • Functions
• Storage
  • Blob
  • Table
  • Queues
• DevOps
  • Boards
  • Builds
  • Releases
• WAF
• Front Door
• API Management
• Monitor/Log analytics/App insights

Many same since my last comment, some new i.e. Front Door and API Management gaining more and more traction.

For most of these, we've written our own custom sensors, but these are pretty common services so I would expect many more to have this need and would be great if those were built-in.

Our customers often use PRTG as a third party witness, so even if developers use App Insights/Azure Monitor/Log analytics, PRTG is what externally monitors and alerts centrally across departments/multiple Azure subscriptions.

PRTG is a great product but as there at least one new service each quarter, it would be nice with a little more agility in delivering sensors for new cloud services, they don't need to be complete, better begin even with a single channel and then add more based on customer feedback.

Currently, we rely heavily on custom sensors, i.e. here's an example where we monitor using custom Kusto queries, which is a really powerful way of fetching metrics out of Azure.

Example monitoring Azure Functions and App Services using rest APIs

We monitor things like customers Azure DevOps releases

Custom sensors are really powerful, but they require to be deployed and cared for in each customer environment or at least each PRTG probe/instance, so for really common services like App Services, Storage, etc. that every Azure user uses, it would be excellent if basic sensors for these were built-into the product.

Hi Matthias,

We hope to publish these sensors in Q2 2020 but I cannot promise is they will be implemented in time.
Please bear with us.

Kind regards,
Marijan Horsky, Team Tech Support.

What sensors are you preparing to release in Q2? The demand for Azure sensors is increasing day by day. We where told that the sensors was on the 2019 roadmap, but we have still not seen anything. You are making a mistake for now prioritizing these sensors higher. I guess people are looking into Azure Monitor by now...

Hi,

We are looking into a sensor for virtual machines, a cost sensor and some more sensors.

Kind regards,
Marijan Horsky, Team Tech Support

Okay. I really hope you guys are having focus on this, because as far as I can tell, the demand is very high. Our customers are really pushing for this. -VM sensors. (CPU, mem, disk) -Cost sensors. -App Service sensors (CPU, mem). -Application Insigts (failures, smart detection) -Log Analytics Solutions (if possible) -A sensor to tap into Azure Alerts would also be a fine idea.