Configure APM platforms for Tomcat, JBoss, or Java SE apps in Azure App Service

Article
07/22/2024

This article shows how to connect Java applications deployed on Azure App Service with Azure Monitor Application Insights, NewRelic, and AppDynamics application performance monitoring (APM) platforms.

Azure App Service runs Java web applications on a fully managed service in three variants:

Java SE - Can run an app deployed as a JAR package that contains an embedded server (such as Spring Boot, Dropwizard, Quarkus, or one with an embedded Tomcat or Jetty server).
Tomcat - The built-in Tomcat server can run an app deployed as a WAR package.
JBoss EAP - Supported for Linux apps in the Premium v3 and Isolated v2 pricing tiers only. The built-in JBoss EAP server can run an app deployed as a WAR or EAR package.

Note

For Spring applications, we recommend using Azure Spring Apps. However, you can still use Azure App Service as a destination. See Java Workload Destination Guidance for advice.

Configure Application Insights

Azure Monitor Application Insights is a cloud native application monitoring service that enables customers to observe failures, bottlenecks, and usage patterns to improve application performance and reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR). With a few clicks or CLI commands, you can enable monitoring for your Node.js or Java apps, autocollecting logs, metrics, and distributed traces, eliminating the need for including an SDK in your app. For more information about the available app settings for configuring the agent, see the Application Insights documentation.

Azure portal
Azure CLI

To enable Application Insights from the Azure portal, go to Application Insights on the left-side menu and select Turn on Application Insights. By default, a new application insights resource of the same name as your web app is used. You can choose to use an existing application insights resource, or change the name. Select Apply at the bottom.

To enable via the Azure CLI, you need to create an Application Insights resource and set a couple app settings on the Azure portal to connect Application Insights to your web app.

Enable the Applications Insights extension

az extension add -n application-insights

Create an Application Insights resource using the following CLI command. Replace the placeholders with your desired resource name and group.
```
az monitor app-insights component create --app <resource-name> -g <resource-group> --location westus2  --kind web --application-type web
```
Note the values for connectionString and instrumentationKey, you'll need these values in the next step.

Note

To retrieve a list of other locations, run az account list-locations.

Set the instrumentation key, connection string, and monitoring agent version as app settings on the web app. Replace <instrumentationKey> and <connectionString> with the values from the previous step.

Windows
Linux

az webapp config appsettings set -n <webapp-name> -g <resource-group> --settings "APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY=<instrumentationKey>" "APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING=<connectionString>" "ApplicationInsightsAgent_EXTENSION_VERSION=~3" "XDT_MicrosoftApplicationInsights_Mode=default" "XDT_MicrosoftApplicationInsights_Java=1"

az webapp config appsettings set -n <webapp-name> -g <resource-group> --settings "APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY=<instrumentationKey>" "APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING=<connectionString>" "ApplicationInsightsAgent_EXTENSION_VERSION=~3" "XDT_MicrosoftApplicationInsights_Mode=default"

Create a NewRelic account at NewRelic.com
Download the Java agent from NewRelic. It has a file name similar to newrelic-java-x.x.x.zip.
Copy your license key, you need it to configure the agent later.
SSH into your App Service instance and create a new directory /home/site/wwwroot/apm.
Upload the unpacked NewRelic Java agent files into a directory under /home/site/wwwroot/apm. The files for your agent should be in /home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic.
Modify the YAML file at /home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic/newrelic.yml and replace the placeholder license value with your own license key.
In the Azure portal, browse to your application in App Service and create a new Application Setting.

Create an environment variable named JAVA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic/newrelic.jar.

Create an environment variable named CATALINA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic/newrelic.jar.

For JBoss EAP, [TODO].

Create a NewRelic account at NewRelic.com
Download the Java agent from NewRelic. It has a file name similar to newrelic-java-x.x.x.zip.
Copy your license key, you need it to configure the agent later.
SSH into your App Service instance and create a new directory /home/site/wwwroot/apm.
Upload the unpacked NewRelic Java agent files into a directory under /home/site/wwwroot/apm. The files for your agent should be in /home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic.
Modify the YAML file at /home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic/newrelic.yml and replace the placeholder license value with your own license key.
In the Azure portal, browse to your application in App Service and create a new Application Setting.

Create an environment variable named JAVA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic/newrelic.jar.

Create an environment variable named CATALINA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/newrelic/newrelic.jar.

For JBoss EAP, [TODO].

Note

If you already have an environment variable for JAVA_OPTS or CATALINA_OPTS, append the -javaagent:/... option to the end of the current value.

Configure AppDynamics

Windows
Linux

Create an AppDynamics account at AppDynamics.com
Download the Java agent from the AppDynamics website. The file name is similar to AppServerAgent-x.x.x.xxxxx.zip
Use the Kudu console to create a new directory /home/site/wwwroot/apm.
Upload the Java agent files into a directory under /home/site/wwwroot/apm. The files for your agent should be in /home/site/wwwroot/apm/appdynamics.
In the Azure portal, browse to your application in App Service and create a new Application Setting.

Create an environment variable named JAVA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/appdynamics/javaagent.jar -Dappdynamics.agent.applicationName=<app-name> where <app-name> is your App Service name. If you already have an environment variable for JAVA_OPTS, append the -javaagent:/... option to the end of the current value.

Create an environment variable named CATALINA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/appdynamics/javaagent.jar -Dappdynamics.agent.applicationName=<app-name> where <app-name> is your App Service name. If you already have an environment variable for CATALINA_OPTS, append the -javaagent:/... option to the end of the current value.

For JBoss EAP, [TODO].

Create an AppDynamics account at AppDynamics.com
Download the Java agent from the AppDynamics website. The file name is similar to AppServerAgent-x.x.x.xxxxx.zip
SSH into your App Service instance and create a new directory /home/site/wwwroot/apm.
Upload the Java agent files into a directory under /home/site/wwwroot/apm. The files for your agent should be in /home/site/wwwroot/apm/appdynamics.
In the Azure portal, browse to your application in App Service and create a new Application Setting.

Create an environment variable named JAVA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/appdynamics/javaagent.jar -Dappdynamics.agent.applicationName=<app-name> where <app-name> is your App Service name. If you already have an environment variable for JAVA_OPTS, append the -javaagent:/... option to the end of the current value.

Create an environment variable named CATALINA_OPTS with the value -javaagent:/home/site/wwwroot/apm/appdynamics/javaagent.jar -Dappdynamics.agent.applicationName=<app-name> where <app-name> is your App Service name. If you already have an environment variable for CATALINA_OPTS, append the -javaagent:/... option to the end of the current value.

For JBoss EAP, [TODO].

Configure Datadog

Windows
Linux

The configuration options are different depending on which Datadog site your organization is using. See the official Datadog Integration for Azure Documentation

Configure Dynatrace

Windows
Linux

Dynatrace provides an Azure Native Dynatrace Service. To monitor Azure App Services using Dynatrace, see the official Dynatrace for Azure documentation

Next steps

Visit the Azure for Java Developers center to find Azure quickstarts, tutorials, and Java reference documentation.

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