Use Application Live View with the Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan

Note

The Basic, Standard, and Enterprise plans will be deprecated starting from mid-March, 2025, with a 3 year retirement period. We recommend transitioning to Azure Container Apps. For more information, see the Azure Spring Apps retirement announcement.

The Standard consumption and dedicated plan will be deprecated starting September 30, 2024, with a complete shutdown after six months. We recommend transitioning to Azure Container Apps. For more information, see Migrate Azure Spring Apps Standard consumption and dedicated plan to Azure Container Apps.

This article applies to: ❌ Basic/Standard ✔️ Enterprise

This article shows you how to use Application Live View for VMware Tanzu with the Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan.

Application Live View for VMware Tanzu is a lightweight insights and troubleshooting tool that helps app developers and app operators look inside running apps.

Application Live View only supports Spring Boot applications.

Prerequisites

• An Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

• Understand and fulfill the Requirements section of Enterprise plan in Azure Marketplace.

• Azure CLI with the Azure Spring Apps extension. Use the following command to remove previous versions and install the latest extension. If you previously installed the spring-cloud extension, uninstall it to avoid configuration and version mismatches.

  az extension remove --name spring
  az extension add --name spring
  az extension remove --name spring-cloud
  

Enable Application Live View

You can enable Application Live View when you provision an Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan instance. If you already have a provisioned Azure Spring Apps Enterprise resource, see the Manage Application Live View in existing Enterprise plan instances section of this article.

You can enable Application Live View using the Azure portal or Azure CLI.

Azure portal

Use the following steps to enable Application Live View using the Azure portal:

1. Navigate to the Azure portal.

2. On the Basics tab, select Enterprise tier in pricing, specify other input fields, and then select Next.

3. On the VMware Tanzu settings tab, select Enable App Live View.

   

4. Specify other settings, and then select Review and Create.

5. Make sure that Enable Application Live View and Enable Dev Tools Portal are set to Yes on the Review and Create tab, and then select Create to create the Enterprise plan instance.

Azure CLI

Use the following steps to provision an Azure Spring Apps service instance using the Azure CLI.

1. Use the following command to sign in to the Azure CLI and specify your active subscription:

   az login
   az account list --output table
   az account set --subscription <subscription-ID>
   

2. Use the following command to accept the legal terms and privacy statements for the Enterprise plan. This step is necessary only if your subscription has never been used to create an Enterprise plan instance of Azure Spring Apps.

   az provider register --namespace Microsoft.SaaS
   az term accept \
       --publisher vmware-inc \
       --product azure-spring-cloud-vmware-tanzu-2 \
       --plan asa-ent-hr-mtr
   

3. Select a location. This location must be a location supporting the Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan. For more information, see the Azure Spring Apps FAQ.

4. Use the following command to create a resource group:

   az group create \
       --name <resource-group-name> \
       --location <location>
   

   For more information about resource groups, see What is Azure Resource Manager?

5. Prepare a name for your Azure Spring Apps service instance. The name must be between 4 and 32 characters long and can contain only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. The first character of the service name must be a letter and the last character must be either a letter or a number.

6. Use the following command to create an Azure Spring Apps service instance:

   az spring create \
       --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
       --name <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name> \
       --sku enterprise \
       --enable-application-live-view
   

Monitor Application Live View

Azure Spring Apps runs the Application Live View in connector mode.

Component	Description
Application Live View Server	The central server component that contains a list of registered apps. Application Live View Server is responsible for proxying the request to fetch the actuator information related to the app.
Application Live View Connector	The component responsible for discovering the running app and registering the instances to the Application Live View Server for it to be observed. The Application Live View Connector is also responsible for proxying the actuator queries to the app.

After you provision the Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan instance, you can obtain its running state and resource consumption, or manage Application Live View.

You can monitor Application Live View using the Azure portal or Azure CLI.

Azure portal

You can view the state of Application Live View in the Azure portal on the Overview tab of the Developer Tools page.

Azure CLI

Use the following command to view Application Live View:

az spring application-live-view show \
    --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
    --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name>

Configure Dev Tools to access Application Live View

To access Application Live View, you need to configure Tanzu Dev Tools. For more information, see Configure Tanzu Dev Tools in the Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan.

Use Application Live View to monitor your apps

Application Live View lets you view live metrics for Spring Boot applications and Spring Native applications. The Application Live View is based on the concept of Spring Boot Actuators.

Use the following steps to deploy an app and monitor it in Application Live View:

1. Add the following dependency to your application's pom.xml file.

   <dependency>
       <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
       <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
    </dependency>
   

2. Add the following execution goal to your Maven plugin in the pom.xml file to expose build information:

   <plugin>
   <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
   <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
   <executions>
       <execution>
       <goals>
           <goal>build-info</goal>
       </goals>
       <configuration>
           <additionalProperties>
           <spring.boot.version>${project.parent.version}</spring.boot.version>
           </additionalProperties>
       </configuration>
       </execution>
   </executions>
   </plugin>
   

3. Enable the actuator endpoint by adding the following configuration in application.properties:

   management.endpoints.web.exposure.include=info,health
   

4. Use the following command to build your package locally:

   mvn clean package -DskipTests
   

5. Use the following command to deploy the binary:

   az spring app create \
       --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
       --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name> \
       --name <app-name>
   az spring app deploy \
       --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
       --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name> \
       --name <app-name> \
       --artifact-path <jar-file-in-target-folder>
   

6. After the app is successfully deployed, you can monitor it using the Application Live View dashboard on Dev Tools Portal. For more information, see Monitor apps by Application Live View.

   If you already enabled Dev Tools Portal and exposed a public endpoint, use the following command to get the Dev Tools Portal dashboard URL. Add the suffix /app-live-view to compose the endpoint to access Application Live View.

   az spring dev-tool show --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name> \
       --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
       --query properties.url \
       --output tsv
   

   You can also access the Application Live View using Visual Studio Code (VS Code). For more information, see the Use Application Live View in VS Code section of this article.

Manage Application Live View in existing Enterprise plan instances

You can enable Application Live View in an existing Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan instance using the Azure portal or Azure CLI.

If you enabled Dev Tools Portal and exposed a public endpoint, use Ctrl+F5 to deactivate the browser cache after you enable Application Live View.

Azure portal

Use the following steps to manage Application Live View using the Azure portal:

1. Navigate to your Azure Spring Apps service instance, and then select Developer Tools.

2. Select Manage tools.

   

3. Select the Enable App Live View checkbox, and then select Save.

   

4. You can then view the state of Application Live View on the Developer Tools.

Azure CLI

Use the following command to enable Application Live View using the Azure CLI:

az spring application-live-view create \
    --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
    --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name>

To access the Application Live View dashboard, you must enable Dev Tools Portal and assign a public endpoint. Use the following command to enable Dev Tools Portal and assign a public endpoint:

az spring dev-tool create \
   --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
   --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name> \
   --assign-endpoint

Configure customized Spring Boot actuator

Application Live View can automatically connect and monitor Spring boot apps with default actuator settings. The default HTTP port of the actuator endpoints are same as the HTTP port of the application and all actuator endpoints are accessible by the default context path of the application, which has the /actuator suffix.

If the port (management.server.port=) or the context path (management.endpoints.web.base-path=/) are customized for an app, Application Live View stops connecting and monitoring the app and reports 404 for the app. To enable Application Live View to continue monitoring such apps, use the following steps to configure the app deployment to customize the actuator endpoints.

Azure portal

Use the following steps to configure the deployment using the Azure portal:

1. Navigate to your Azure Spring Apps service instance, then go to the Apps page and select an application.

2. Select Configuration in the navigation pane.

3. On the General settings tab, update the Spring Boot actuator port and Spring Boot actuator path values, then select Save.

   

Azure CLI

Use the following command to deploy your application with the custom actuator settings in the Azure CLI:

az spring app deploy \
    --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
    --service <Azure-Spring-Apps-service-instance-name> \
    --name <app-name> \
    --artifact-path <jar-file-in-target-folder> \
    --custom-actuator-path <another-path-for-actuator> \
    --custom-actuator-port <another-port-for-actuator>

Note

You can set this configuration on an app or a deployment. When you configure an app, it actually takes effect on the current active deployment, but doesn't automatically affect new deployments.

Use Application Live View in VS Code

You can access Application Live View directly in VS Code to monitor your apps in the Azure Spring Apps Enterprise plan.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio Code
• Azure Spring Apps extension for Visual Studio Code

View Application Live View dashboard

Use the following steps to view the Application Live View dashboard for a service instance:

1. In Visual Studio Code, open the Azure Spring Apps extension, and then sign in to your Azure account.

2. Expand the service instance that you want to monitor and right-click to select the service instance.

3. Select Open Application Live View from the menu to open the Application Live View dashboard in your default browser.

   

View Application Live View page for an app

Use the following steps to view the Application Live View page for an app:

1. In Visual Studio Code, open the Azure Spring Apps extension, and then sign in to your Azure account.

2. Expand the service instance and the app that you want to monitor. Right-click the app.

3. Select Open Application Live View from the menu to open the Application Live View page for the app in your default browser.

   

Troubleshoot Application Live View issues

If you try to open Application Live View for a service instance or an app that hasn't enabled Application Live View or exposed a public endpoint, you see an error message.

To enable Application Live View and expose public endpoint, use either the Azure portal or the Azure CLI. For more information, see the Manage Application Live View in existing Enterprise plan instances section of this article.

Next steps

• Azure Spring Apps