Availability is a new norm with the emergence of the DevOps and infrastructure revolution. Today, the definition of sustainability in business is synonymous with the high availability and uptime of applications. IT Professionals looking to work in the cloud domain are expected to have a sound understanding of Azure tools as well as development and monitoring tools.
This blog walks you through the top Azure Monitoring and Development that every SRE and DevOps engineer must know. Also, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification will help you validate your expertise on how Azure supports security, privacy, compliance, and trust.
Microsoft Azure is the second-most popular cloud service provider, next to Amazon Web Service. It allows you to build, host, and deploy resources in the cloud efficiently and cost-effectively. Azure integrates with third-party tools that enables quick debugging and troubleshooting your on-prem and cloud resources. Configuring and setting up these Azure DevOps Tools is easy. Enroll for Cloud Computing classes and learn to use Azure Monitoring tools from scratch.
Why are Azure Tools Important?
Azure Monitor Tools are essential to understand the alert's type, nature, and severity. Using time-based graphs and dashboards in these alert-based tools, it becomes easy to understand the root cause of the issue. In short, monitoring tools act as a bridge between the problem and the solution.
For instance, an Azure Virtual Machine suddenly starts malfunctioning due to high disk space, and the end-users face difficulties accessing the service linked with the VM. Here, the Azure tools fit in, allowing setting up alert rules based on some conditions. Once the limit reaches its threshold, manual troubleshooting or automation gets the fix.
1. Serverless360
Serverless360 is a popular Azure serverless monitoring provider with unbeatable features and solutions. It is one of the best Azure Dev tools for teaching that offers advanced contextual visualization for Azure-based applications. Be it accessing users in the Azure role-based access control, governing user actions, or merely monitoring user profiles – Serverless360 can do it all.
Besides, it offers excellent managing and monitoring capabilities to help system admins and analysts increase productivity. That means any time there is an outage or a failure, the on-call person gets a notification about the issue with detailed information.
Features
- It offers a Composite Application feature where different regions, groups, and subscriptions are combined as a single unit.
- Pre-defined templates to help in monitoring Azure resources and services.
- Provision with Azure resource usage tracker for tracking resource costs.
- Integrates with popular notification channels like DataDog, Grafana, and PagerDuty, to name a few.
- Continuously scans Azure services and detects security compliances.
Pros
- Unmatchable capabilities to monitor Azure resources comprehensively.
- Auto-generated technical documentation.
- Intuitive real-time dashboards.
Cons:
- UI could be easier to navigate.
- Difficult for beginners without basic training.
Recommended for: Managing and monitoring Microsoft Azure serverless resources.
Pricing: You get a free trial for the first 15 days from the subscription date. Once the free trial ends, you get the Enterprise plan based on your business needs.
2. Azure Monitor
Azure Monitor is a built-in Azure cost management tool, a free tracker for monitoring cloud and on-premises resources. It is a popular management and governance tool with advanced observability and tracking capabilities. It lets you check the health status of the VM or its current state without the need to log into the respective VMs explicitly. Tracking metrics, logs, and distributed traces of any resource is a matter of clicks.
Features
- The centralized data store integrates data from every system layer.
- Provisioned with Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance simplifies the transition of the on-premises System Centre Operation Manager (Operations Manager) installation to the cloud in Azure.
- Uses Distributed tracing techniques to trace requests and identify causes and trouble with remediate actions.
- Support is available for popular languages such as .NET, Java, and Node.js.
- Integrates with Azure Event Hubs, Azure Logic Apps, multiple APIs, and other external event management tools.
Pros
- Supports all Azure PAAS services.
- Excellent customization options packed with visualization tools.
- Interpreting charts, visuals, and dashboards is effortless.
Cons
- Fails to provide service-level metrics.
- Integrates with only a handful of notification channels.
- Need installation of an agent to monitor non-azure resources.
Recommended for: Detailed insight into your Azure cloud resources and networks.
Price: Starting with Azure Monitor is free. Once the trial ends, you can opt for Basic or Premium plans per your business needs. Pricing depends on your monitoring needs and the region.
3. Application Insights
An extension of Azure Monitor, Application Insight is a powerful built-in Azure monitoring tool. It is extensively used to monitor live applications as it provides performance monitoring (APM) capabilities. Regardless of your application's present stage, whether in the testing phase, development phase, or even in production, this tool can track logs and metrics at any stage. Generally, APM tools get the application's insight by understanding its running state. Then, it identifies the application execution data to determine the problem's root cause.
Features
- Can provide application Insight throughout the SDLC, including tracking problems in production.
- Integrate with Visual Studio App Center and other third-party tools.
- Uses distributed component correlation search mechanism for visualizing and monitoring alerts.
- Detects potential performance problems in the web application in advance.
- Supports most popular languages like. NET) Java, JavaScript, Node.js, and Python are hosted on-prem and in the cloud.
Pros
- Monitoring live applications capabilities.
- Monitoring is enabled for both backend and frontend codes.
- The smart Detection feature makes it easy to analyze and detects changes in the application.
Cons
- Integration with a few software and tracking their service is tough.
- Creating customized dashboards requires hands-on experience.
- Lacks inter-resource-group monitoring and is sometimes slow.
Recommended for: Monitoring live applications.
Price: Starting with Application Insights is free of cost. You get billed based on the volume of the telemetry data sent by your applications.
4. Dynatrace
Dynatrace is one of the most advanced observability tools with an excellent user interface. It allows us to trace alerts and metrics through colourful graphs. Using this tool, you can build customized dashboards for getting complete updates on your resources hosted in the Azure environment. Also, it is popularly used for advanced visibility of hosts, VMs, containers, and orchestration. Above all, it provides an AI-assisted problem detector that automatically alerts during an outage.
Features
- Featured with dynamic topology mapping technology that helps auto-discover issues and problems in the application.
- It is a built-in Massively parallel processing (MPP) data lake house to handle all your infrastructure observability and security needs.
- Protects applications from external threats by filtering traffic and allowing the flow through only reliable sources.
- Integrates with Slack, Workflows, and Atlassian Jira.
Pros
- Best User Interface.
- Centralized dashboard for detailed insights.
- Easy installation and setup.
Cons
- Network and database Monitoring is difficult.
- Pricing is expensive compared to other Azure etl tools.
- Limited schedules for reporting.
Recommended for: Advanced observability of your applications in a sophisticated, tech-savvy way.
Price: Dynatrace is free for the first 15 days. Next, the pricing starts at $69 per month, $21 per month, and $11 per month for full-stack, infrastructure, and Digital experience monitoring, respectively.
5. Datadog
One of the most simplistic Azure management tools, DataDog, offers various solutions for network monitoring. It lets you monitor your servers, networks, and logs with ease. Because of its simplistic UI and easy-to-use dashboards, Datadog is popularly used for monitoring private and public cloud resources. Above all, it has built-in mechanisms to alert you whenever your system has a performance issue or security breach.
Features
- Provisioned with tags to filter incoming and outgoing traffic.
- Offers creating dashboards to manage SLAs/SLOs.
- Integrates with SaaS and cloud providers and automation tools.
- Allows getting notifications on critical issues through alerting channels like PagerDuty, Slack, etc.
- Provides advanced dashboard & alerting mechanism to detect errors and disturbances in the infrastructure.
Pros
- Impressive UI coupled with dashboards and advanced graphs.
- Straightforward tool to adapt and use!
- Helpful runbooks help to act on alerts.
Cons
- Creating a dashboard from scratch is time-consuming.
- Scaling challenges.
- Complex log indigestion.
Recommended for: Monitoring and securing on-prem and cloud applications.
Price: Getting started with DataDog is free. The Pro and Enterprise pricing starts at $15 and $23 per month per host respectively.
6. Log Analytics
Another built-in one of the Azure security tools in the Azure portal helps monitor logs and metrics in the Azure Monitor Logs store. Collecting telemetry is effortless regardless of your environment, on-prem or in the cloud. The basic editing and running log queries against the targeted data will give you detailed information. Use the basic queries to filter and sort based on your needs. Best of all, you will see the query output displayed in specified columns and rows.
Features
- Easily integrates with Azure virtual machines in the Azure portal and on-prem.
- Featured with AppRequests table to write single-line and multiple-line queries.
- Allows to create a pivotal chart to observe results and performance of applications.
- Querying and filtering capabilities make it easy to comprehend query outputs.
Pros
- Running log queries helps in monitoring results.
- Filtering, sorting, and querying group results are effortless.
- Integration and implementation with third-party tools are made easy!
Cons
- Changing the table schema corrupts the table.
- Logs inserted into the Application Insights make debugging the application time-consuming.
- Expensive compared to other tools.
Recommended for: Collecting logs and telemetry collectively in one place.
Price: Log Analytics Agent integration with Azure Monitor is free of cost. However, there are costs associated with data ingestion. You can opt for the Basic or Business plan based on your needs.
7. New Relic
A robust monitoring tool with extraordinary features and powerful capabilities to address all end-to-end monitoring needs. This tool generates logs and reports that simplify observability. Whether you need to understand performance issues or network glitches, New Relic handles all your monitoring needs like any other Azure diagram tool. Also, it addresses the problem at the right time by giving a detailed insight into metrics, events, logs, and traces.
Features
- Featured with support PHP, Java, Python, and Ruby.
- Provisioned with service level agreement (SLA) reporting feature to track the overall runtime of the application (uptime and downtime).
- Applied Intelligence engine assistance makes identifying and inspecting the root cause analysis easy.
- Comprehensive documentation includes an installation guide, how-to tutorials, and best practice recommendations.
Pros
- Excellent monitoring and observability capabilities help in troubleshooting issues quickly.
- One-in-all monitoring tool to manage applications and hosts.
- Track applications in real-time are easy using New Relic.
Cons
- Configuration and setup are tedious.
- No provision for a default dashboard to monitor the overall status of a group of applications.
- Unlike other tools, there is no option to turn off an alert from the UI.
Recommended for: Monitoring and tracking application performance.
Price: Signing up with New Relic is free. Standard, Pro, and Enterprise pricing are options, each charged with the level of service offered.
Before exploring Azure monitoring tools, a basic understanding of commonly used services is highly recommended. To begin with, go for KnowledgeHut Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification and get your basics right.
1. Azure Storage Explorer
A new Azure dev tools from Microsoft enables you to identify Azure resources according to name, type, and resource groups. It is a free standalone application that makes working with Azure Storage data on Windows, macOS, and Linux effortlessly. This tool lets you use your Azure account to connect with Azure resources like Lob containers, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 containers, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 directories, and Queues.
2. Cloud Explorer for Visual Studio
It is a new Azure dev tools from Microsoft that enables you to identify Azure resources according to name, type, and resource groups. This Azure development tool can connect with your Azure account and effectively manage Azure resources and groups from Visual Studio. That means, any time you need to explore the properties of a specific Azure resource or take any action, you can do it straight away from the Visual Studio IDE without navigating to the Azure portal.
3. The SQL Database Migration Wizard
One of the most prominent Azure migration tools for your application migration needs. If you intend to transition from the SQL server to the SQL database, consider using SQL Database Migration Wizard. It is most commonly used to migrate SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2012, and 2014 databases to the SQL database. The wizard keeps notifying you with timely upgrades to fix any existing issues in the previous version.
4. Cloud Combine
Another Azure architecture diagram tool known for its simplistic UI and stand-out functionalities. Logging and managing storage resources is effortless, making this tool popular among competitors. Cloud Combine is popular among Azure DevTools for teaching because of its simplicity and beginner-friendly UI. It is compatible with top cloud providers’ cloud storage services like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. Also, you can easily download and upload data, regardless of size or type. You can also use Cloud Combine as an Azure architecture diagram tool because it has a drag-and-drop option for transferring data effortlessly.
5. Azure Blob Studio
If you are looking for the best Microsoft Azure dev tools for managing Azure resources, consider Azure Blob Studio for your business needs. It is a stand-alone application with an extension available for Visual Studio. Using this tool, you can easily create, configure, or delete blobs and containers. Managing azure resources and containers is simple using this tool. Retrieving URI and meta-data is also available using Azure Blob Studio.
6. Graph Engine VSExtension
A famous Software Development Kit (SDK) by Microsoft Research deserves mention in the top Azure DevOps tools list. Formerly popularized as Trinity, is a distributed, in-memory, large graph processing engine. Graph Engine integrates with other third-party tools and system slacks. It is a versatile general-purpose computation engine and is highly extensible. With the unified declarative language, it has the potential for both data modelling and message passing.
7. Docker
If you are looking for the best Microsoft Azure dev tools for teaching container management, consider Docker. The most in-demand containerization tool Docker is a favourite pick for Microsoft Azure developers. It is famous for container management, offering the option to build, manage and destroy containers quickly. Microsoft Azure supports Docker allowing it to work with containers.
Selecting the right Azure tool can be tricky. It is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all tool to address all your development and monitoring needs. Regardless of your needs, whether you have a few resources to manage or a complex architecture, the choice of Azure tool depends on your goals and objectives. Check out a few considerations:
- Integration Capabilities: Ensure your Azure tool is compatible with your existing software, devices, and systems.
- Initial Set-Up: Don’t consider a difficult-to-set-up tool, especially if you are starting. Instead, choose a tool that is easy to install and configure.
- Pricing Options: Azure tools price varies on the level of service and comprehensive offerings you choose. Go with the pricing options that best fit your project needs and budget.
- Security & Protection: Consider choosing Azure tools with built-in and advanced security features to detect threats early.
- Help & Support: Select a reliable tool where you can contact customer care for assistance if something goes wrong.
Conclusion
Azure monitoring tools are excellent for managing resources effectively and increasing your team’s overall productivity. With the list of Azure development and monitoring tools discussed above, you can choose the right pick to monitor systems and infrastructure. Use this guide to filter the Azure tools list by checking out their perks and drawbacks.
However, the list doesn’t end here. There are other Azure tools you can leverage to save time and strenuous efforts of monitoring yourself. As a beginner’s rule, start with the best Azure dev tools for education and then filter the list based on your work requirement.
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