Microsoft’s Azure team is adding a new feature that gives developers added granular insight into the performance of their apps.
Announced today, August 16, 2016, developers will now be empowered with Visual Studio Application Insights Performance Counters for Azure Web Apps. The Microsoft Azure team has added a new Aggregate Metrics package that houses new telemetry monitoring on an apps use of resources and varied workloads.
Before the update, some app developers were left relying on performance counters such as CPU and network usage to measure how well their app was maintaining its fidelity and allocating resource during peak usage periods.
Now, thanks to a pair of Microsoft interns, Mackenzie Frackleton and Mateo Torres Ruiz, developers can make use of a new breadth of performance counters that have new visualizations which now pop up in the Azure portal through the new Application Insights. Developers have visual access to monitor how memory is being used and the percentage of the CPU’s processor in use. There is also a Live Metrics Stream implementation being planned for a future update for developers to play around with, sometime down the road.
The intern-duo also tweaked Performance Counter features to enable Azure customers to build customer Performance Counters which can measure threat and handle count and provide greater insight details on performance of their Web Apps.
For those interested in getting started with customized Performance Counters for Application Insights, the intern-duo list a few steps to start the new monitoring process that include:
Simply install the Aggregate Metrics prerelease NuGet package in your app. This package is now in the SDK Labs feed. You should then be able to view the below performance charts in your Application Insights Metrics Explorer within the Azure portal.”
Visit the SDK Labs repository or the Microsoft Azure blog for more details on the updates and to try out firsthand, the level of control that comes with the added monitoring features.
