Troubleshoot Azure Files by creating alerts

This article explains how to create and receive alerts if an Azure file share is being throttled or is about to be throttled. Requests are throttled when the I/O operations per second (IOPS), ingress, or egress limits for a file share are reached.

Important

For standard storage accounts, throttling occurs at the storage account level. For premium file shares, throttling occurs at the share level.

Applies to

File share type	SMB	NFS
Standard file shares (GPv2), LRS/ZRS
Standard file shares (GPv2), GRS/GZRS
Premium file shares (FileStorage), LRS/ZRS

Create an alert if a file share is being throttled

1. Go to your storage account in the Azure portal.

2. In the Monitoring section, click Alerts, and then click + New alert rule.

3. Click Edit resource, select the File resource type for the storage account and then click Done. For example, if the storage account name is contoso, select the contoso/file resource.

4. Click Add condition to add a condition.

5. You'll see a list of signals supported for the storage account, select the Transactions metric.

6. On the Configure signal logic blade, click the Dimension name drop-down and select Response type.

7. Click the Dimension values drop-down and select the appropriate response types for your file share.

   For standard file shares, select the following response types (requests are throttled at the storage account level):

   • ClientAccountRequestThrottlingError
   • ClientAccountBandwidthThrottlingError

   For premium file shares, select the following response types (requests are throttled at the share level):

   • SuccessWithShareEgressThrottling
   • SuccessWithShareIngressThrottling
   • SuccessWithShareIopsThrottling
   • ClientShareEgressThrottlingError
   • ClientShareIngressThrottlingError
   • ClientShareIopsThrottlingError

   Note

   If the response types aren't listed in the Dimension values drop-down, this means the resource hasn't been throttled. To add the dimension values, next to the Dimension values drop-down list, select Add custom value, enter the response type (for example, SuccessWithThrottling), select OK, and then repeat these steps to add all applicable response types for your file share.

8. For premium file shares, select the Dimension name drop-down list and select File Share. For standard file shares, skip to step #10.

   Note

   If the file share is a standard file share, the File Share dimension won't list the file share(s) because per-share metrics aren't available for standard file shares. Throttling alerts for standard file shares will be triggered if any file share within the storage account is throttled, and the alert won't identify which file share was throttled. Because per-share metrics aren't available for standard file shares, we recommend having only one file share per storage account.

9. Select the Dimension values drop-down and select the file share(s) that you want to alert on.

10. Define the alert parameters (threshold value, operator, aggregation granularity and frequency of evaluation) and select Done.

    Tip

    If you're using a static threshold, the metric chart can help determine a reasonable threshold value if the file share is currently being throttled. If you're using a dynamic threshold, the metric chart will display the calculated thresholds based on recent data.

11. Select Add action groups to add an action group (email, SMS, etc.) to the alert either by selecting an existing action group or creating a new action group.

12. Fill in the Alert details like Alert rule name, Description, and Severity.

13. Select Create alert rule to create the alert.

Create alert if a premium file share is close to being throttled

1. In the Azure portal, go to your storage account.

2. In the Monitoring section, select Alerts, and then select New alert rule.

3. Select Edit resource, select the File resource type for the storage account, and then select Done. For example, if the storage account name is contoso, select the contoso/file resource.

4. Select Select Condition to add a condition.

5. In the list of signals that are supported for the storage account, select the Egress metric.

   Note

   You have to create three separate alerts to be alerted when the ingress, egress, or transaction values exceed the thresholds you set. This is because an alert is triggered only when all conditions are met. For example, if you put all the conditions in one alert, you would be alerted only if ingress, egress, and transactions exceed their threshold amounts.

6. Scroll down. In the Dimension name drop-down list, select File Share.

7. In the Dimension values drop-down list, select the file share or shares that you want to alert on.

8. Define the alert parameters by selecting values in the Operator, Threshold value, Aggregation granularity, and Frequency of evaluation drop-down lists, and then select Done.

   Egress, ingress, and transactions metrics are expressed per minute, though you're provisioned egress, ingress, and I/O per second. Therefore, for example, if your provisioned egress is 90  MiB/s and you want your threshold to be 80 percent of provisioned egress, select the following alert parameters:

   • For Threshold value: 75497472
   • For Operator: greater than or equal to
   • For Aggregation type: average

   Depending on how noisy you want your alert to be, you can also select values for Aggregation granularity and Frequency of evaluation. For example, if you want your alert to look at the average ingress over the time period of 1 hour, and you want your alert rule to be run every hour, select the following:

   • For Aggregation granularity: 1 hour
   • For Frequency of evaluation: 1 hour

9. Select Add action groups, and then add an action group (for example, email or SMS) to the alert either by selecting an existing action group or by creating a new one.

10. Enter the alert details, such as Alert rule name, Description, and Severity.

11. Select Create alert rule to create the alert.

    Note

    • To be notified that your premium file share is close to being throttled because of provisioned ingress, follow the preceding instructions, but with the following change:

      • In step 5, select the Ingress metric instead of Egress.

    • To be notified that your premium file share is close to being throttled because of provisioned IOPS, follow the preceding instructions, but with the following changes:

      • In step 5, select the Transactions metric instead of Egress.
      • In step 10, the only option for Aggregation type is Total. Therefore, the threshold value depends on your selected aggregation granularity. For example, if you want your threshold to be 80 percent of provisioned baseline IOPS and you select 1 hour for Aggregation granularity, your Threshold value would be your baseline IOPS (in bytes) × 0.8 × 3600.

See also

• Troubleshoot Azure Files
• Troubleshoot Azure Files Performance
• Understand Azure Files performance
• Overview of alerts in Microsoft Azure

Contact us for help

If you have questions or need help, create a support request, or ask Azure community support. You can also submit product feedback to Azure feedback community.