Azure Monitor picks up new network and container monitoring features and refinements

Since entering general availability back in April 2017, Azure Monitor has been progressively integrated with a number of other cloud services in Microsoft's stable, including Azure Web Application Firewall and Windows Admin Center. The solution is designed to help users obtain metrics, manage logs, and enact issue identification and diagnosis for Azure virtual networks. Now, at its Ignite 2019 conference, Microsoft has made a number of announcements regarding Azure Monitor enhancements and programs.

The company took the opportunity to announce a couple of refinements regarding its Network Insights preview and Traffic Analytics to help provide improved visibility of network activity to users, specifically:

Network Insights: Introducing a single console that provides health information and other data across customer networking resources in the cloud.

Traffic Analytics: An existing solution that provides visibility and auditing support for network activity in the cloud, Traffic Analytics now provides faster insights by processing data at 10-minute intervals.

The Redmond firm has also paid attention to DevOps teams who use Azure Monitor to detect and troubleshoot network anomalies, making it easier for them to do so without having to adjust code or connect to Azure virtual machines thanks to new functionality that facilitates no-code .NET application monitoring. A new Application Insights agent that monitors and collects telemetry for IIS and .NET processes will also bring with it improved debugging and profiling capabilities.

In the container space, Azure Monitor will also deploy a couple of new container capabilities, which are comprised of:

Hybrid Monitoring: Customers who run a hybrid Kubernetes deployment with on-premises and Azure infrastructure can now just use Azure Monitor for monitoring both environments.

Prometheus Support: The capability to scrape Prometheus metrics and logs directly into Azure Monitor is now generally available.

Furthermore, Microsoft will also roll out a number of minor refinements, such as live deployment metrics and cluster health roll up, that will enable customers to observe and interrogate data concerning their containers in a centralized manner. Meanwhile, for those managing Azure Red Hat OpenShift instances and looking for consolidated log capabilities for their applications and clusters, Azure Monitor Log Analytics integration is now available in preview form.

Rounding out the Azure Monitor updates, Microsoft has begun offering a new capacity reservation pricing model for Log Analytics that can help customers realize price reductions of up to 25% when compared to PAYG pricing. Introduced alongside Azure Sentinel on November 1, the base reservation tier for Log Analytics includes 100GB per day with a 15% discount compared to PAYG. You can access complete regional pricing for Azure Monitor Log Analytics here.