Monitor Azure Local with Azure Monitor Metrics

Applies to: Azure Local 2311.2 and later

This article describes how to monitor your Azure Local system with Azure Monitor Metrics. It also describes the Performance Metrics dashboard and lists metrics collected for compute, storage, and network resources in Azure Local.

When you have critical applications and business processes that rely on Azure resources, it's important to monitor those resources for their availability, performance, and operation. The integration of Azure Monitor Metrics with Azure Local enables you to store numeric data from your clusters in a dedicated time-series database. This database is automatically created for each Azure subscription. Use metrics explorer to analyze data from your Azure Local system and assess its health and utilization.

Take a few moments to watch the video walkthrough on creating metric charts in metrics explorer and alerts using Metrics:

Benefits

Here are the benefits of using Metrics for Azure Local:

• No extra cost. These metrics are standard, out-of-the-box features that are automatically collected and provided to you at no extra cost.

• Near real-time insights. You have the capability to observe out-of-the-box metrics and correlate trends using near real-time data.  

• Customization. You can create your own graphs and customize them through aggregation and filter functionality. The task of saving and sharing your metric charts via Excel, workbooks, or sending them to Grafana is straightforward.

• Custom alert rules. You can write custom alert rules on the metrics to efficiently monitor the health of your Azure Local system.

Prerequisites

Here are the prerequisites of using Metrics for Azure Local:

• You must have access to an Azure Local system that's deployed, registered, and connected to Azure.

• The AzureEdgeTelemetryAndDiagnostics extension must be installed to collect telemetry and diagnostics information from your Azure Local system. For more information about the extension, see Azure Local telemetry and diagnostics extension overview.

Monitor Azure Local through the Monitoring tab

In the Azure portal, you can monitor platform metrics of your cluster by navigating to the Monitoring tab on your cluster's Overview page. This tab offers a quick way to view graphs for different platform metrics. You can select any of the graphs to further analyze the data in metrics explorer.

Follow these steps to monitor platform metrics of your system in the Azure portal:

1. Go to your Azure Local cluster resource page and select your cluster.

2. On the Overview page of your cluster, select the Monitoring tab.

   

3. On the Platform metrics pane, review the graphs displaying platform metrics. To know the metrics that Azure Monitor collects to populate these graphs, see Metrics for the Monitoring tab graphs.

   • At the top of the pane, select a duration to change the time range for the graphs.

   • Select the See all metrics link to analyze metrics using metrics explorer. See Analyze metrics.

   • Select any of the graphs to open them in metrics explorer to drill down further or to create an alert rule. See Create metrics alerts.

     

Analyze metrics

You can use metrics explorer to interactively analyze the data in your metric database and chart the values of multiple metrics over time. To open the metrics explorer in the Azure portal, select Metrics under the Monitoring section.

You can also access Metrics directly from the menu for the Azure Local services.

With Metrics, you can create charts from metric values and visually correlate trends. You can also create a metric alert rule or pin a chart to an Azure dashboard to view them with other visualizations. For a tutorial on using this tool, see Analyze metrics for an Azure resource.

Platform metrics are stored for 93 days, however, you can only query (in the Metrics tile) for a maximum of 30 days' worth of data on any single chart. To know more about data retention, see Metrics in Azure Monitor.

Analyze metrics for a specific cluster

Follow these steps to analyze metrics for a specific Azure Local cluster in the Azure portal:

1. Go to your Azure Local cluster and navigate to the Monitoring section.

2. To analyze metrics, select the Metrics option. Your cluster will already be populated in the scope section. Select the metric you want to analyze.

   

   To create alerts, select the Alerts option and set up alerts as described in Create metric alerts.

Monitor performance metrics

The performance metrics dashboard provides a comprehensive view of performance metrics across all Azure Local systems within a subscription or for a specific system. It collects over 60 metrics at no additional cost via the AzureEdgeTelemetryAndDiagnostics extension. These metrics form the basis of the charts displayed in the dashboard, offering insights into infrastructure performance and health.

There are two types of performance metrics dashboards:

• Single Cluster Performance Metrics, which offers drilled-down views for a specific system, split by unique logical unit number (LUN).

• Multi Cluster Performance Metrics, which monitors multiple systems at scale and provides detailed view of performance metrics across all systems within a subscription.

Benefits

• Requires no extra setup to view your data, provided the AzureEdgeTelemetryAndDiagnostics extension is installed.

• Consolidates all available metrics into a single view, eliminating the need to select individual metrics.

• Built using Azure Workbooks, highly customizable and user-friendly.

• Includes multiple filters, such as a time filter for viewing data up to the past 30 days.

• Allows viewing metrics for multiple clusters across various subscriptions, with filters for subscription, resource groups, or clusters. For a specific cluster, a drilled-down view of metrics at the node, volume, and netadapter levels is available.

Access the performance metrics dashboard

You can access the performance metrics dashboard through Azure Monitor or the Azure Local system.

Access the dashboard via Azure Monitor

To access the dashboard via Azure Monitor, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Azure Monitor and select Workbooks.

2. Under the Azure Local section, select the Multi Cluster Performance Metrics workbook.

   

Access the dashboard via the Azure Local system

To access the dashboard via the Azure Local system, follow these steps:

1. In the Azure portal, go to your Azure Local system.

2. Under Monitoring, select Workbooks.

3. Select one of the following workbooks based on whether you want to view performance metrics for a single cluster or multiple clusters:

   • Single Cluster Performance Metrics

   • Multi Cluster Performance Metrics

     

View the dashboard charts

The performance metrics dashboard is organized into three tabs, each focusing on different aspects of system performance. Select the relevant tab to view the metrics related to the selected system performance category.

Storage Performance

Monitoring storage performance helps optimize storage utilization, allocation, and configuration according to resources and business needs.

The Storage Performance tab presents three types of metrics:

• Volume Usage Metrics. This section displays metrics related to volume usage, such as disk read/write operations per second, disk read/write bytes per second, and volume latency.

  Here's a sample screenshot of Volume Usage Metrics:

  

• VHD Metrics. This section displays metrics related to VHD, such as VHD read/write operations per second, VHD read/write bytes per second, VHD latency, and VHD current and maximum size.

  Here's a sample screenshot of VHD Metrics:

  

• Physical Disk Metrics. This section displays metrics related to physical disk read/write operations per second, physical disk read/write bytes per second, latency read and write, total capacity size, and capacity size used.

  Here's a sample screenshot of Physical Disk Metrics:

  

In a Single Cluster Performance Metrics dashboard, you can drill down further to view metrics split by LUN, which is a unique identifier for storage resources.

Network Performance

Monitoring network performance metrics ensure network availability for users, help identify and troubleshoot problems, and improve network performance.

This section provides network performance metrics, including netadapter bytes sent/received per second, RDMA inbound/outbound bytes per second, and VM netadapter bytes sent/received per second.

Here's a sample screenshot of Network Metrics:

In a Single Cluster Performance Metrics dashboard, you can drill down Network metrics to see performance for each netadapter available on different servers within a cluster by its unique LUN.

Compute

Monitoring compute metrics, including memory and CPU, ensures proper resource allocation and utilization. It identifies usage patterns for appropriate actions, helps detect issues, optimizes system performance, and ensures smooth operation of resources.

The Compute tab presents two types of metrics:

• Memory Metrics. This section provides information on memory used, available, percentage usage for host and guest, VM memory available, used, memory assigned, pressure, maximum, minimum, startup, and more.

  Here's a sample screenshot of Memory Metrics:

  

• CPU Metrics. This section offers metrics, such as Total CPU percentage, host vs guest CPU percentage, and VM CPU percentage.

  Here's a sample screenshot of CPU Metrics:

  

In a Single Cluster Performance Metrics dashboard, you can view Memory and CPU metrics for each server within a cluster.

What metrics are collected?

This section lists the platform metrics that are collected for the Azure Local cluster, the aggregation types, and the dimensions available for each metric. For more information about metric dimensions, see Multi-dimensional metrics.

Metrics for the Monitoring tab graphs

The following table lists the metrics that Azure Monitor collects to populate the graphs on the Monitoring tab:

Metrics	Unit
Percentage CPU	Percent
Network In/Sec	BytesPerSecond
Network Out/Sec	BytesPerSecond
Disk Read Bytes/Sec	BytesPerSecond
Disk Write Bytes/Sec	BytesPerSecond
Disk Read Operations/Sec	CountPerSecond
Disk Write Operations/Sec	CountPerSecond
Used Memory Bytes	Bytes

Metrics for nodes

Metric	Description	Unit	Default Aggregation Type	Supported Aggregation Type	Dimensions
Percentage CPU	Percentage of processor time that isn't idle.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node
Percentage CPU Guest	Percentage of processor time used for guest (virtual machine) demand.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node
Percentage CPU Host	Percentage of processor time used for host demand.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node
Cluster node Memory Total	The total physical memory of the node.	Bytes	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node
Cluster node Memory Available	The available memory of the node.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node
Cluster node Memory Used	The used memory of the node.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum	Cluster, Node
Percentage Memory	The allocated (not available) memory of the node.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node
Percentage Memory Guest	The memory allocated to guest (virtual machine) demand.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN, VM
Percentage Memory Host	The memory allocated to host demand.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node
Cluster node Csv cache Read Hit	Cache hit PerSecond for read operations.	CountPerSecond	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Cluster node Csv cache Read Hit rate	Cache hit rate for read operations.	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Cluster node Csv cache Read Miss	Cache missPerSecond for read operations.	CountPerSecond	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Cluster node Storage Degraded	Total number of failed or missing drives in the storage pool.	Bytes	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node

Metrics for drives

Metric	Description	Unit	Default Aggregation Type	Supported Aggregation Type	Dimensions
Physicaldisk Read Operations/Sec	Number of read operations per second completed by the drive.	CountPerSecond	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Write Operations/Sec	Number of write operations per second completed by the drive.	CountPerSecond	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Read and Write Operations/Sec	Total number of read or write operations per second completed by the drive.	CountPerSecond	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Read Bytes/Sec	Quantity of data read from the drive per second.	BytesPerSecond	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Write Bytes/Sec	Quantity of data written to the drive per second.	BytesPerSecond	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Read and Write	Total quantity of data read from or written to the drive per second.	BytesPerSecond	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Latency Read	Average latency of read operations from the drive.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Latency Write	Average latency of write operations to the drive.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Latency Average	Average latency of all operations to or from the drive.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Capacity Size Total	The total storage capacity of the drive.	Bytes	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, LUN
Physicaldisk Capacity Size Used	The used storage capacity of the drive.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN

Metrics for network adapters

Metric	Description	Unit	Default Aggregation Type	Supported Aggregation Type	Dimensions
Network In/Sec	Rate of data received by the network adapter.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Network Adapter, LUN
Network Out/Sec	Rate of data sent by the network adapter.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Network Adapter, LUN
Network Total/Sec	Total rate of data received or sent by the network adapter.	Bytes Per Second	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Network Adapter, LUN
Netadapter Bandwidth Rdma Inbound	Rate of data received over RDMA by the network adapter.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Network Adapter, LUN
Netadapter Bandwidth Rdma Outbound	Rate of data sent over RDMA by the network adapter.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Network Adapter, LUN
Netadapter Bandwidth Rdma Total	Total rate of data received or sent over RDMA by the network adapter.	Bytes Per Second	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Network Adapter, LUN

Metrics for VHDs

Metric	Description	Unit	Default Aggregation Type	Supported Aggregation Type	Dimensions
VHD Read Operations/Sec	Number of read operations per second completed by the virtual hard disk.	Count Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Write Operations/Sec	Number of write operations per second completed by the virtual hard disk.	Count Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Read and Write Operations/Sec	Total number of read or write operations per second completed by the virtual hard disk.	Count Per Second	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Read Bytes/Sec	Quantity of data read from the virtual hard disk per second.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Write Bytes/Sec	Quantity of data written to the virtual hard disk per second.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Read and Write Bytes/Sec	Total quantity of data read from or written to the virtual hard disk per second.	Bytes Per Second	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Latency Average	Average latency of all operations to or from the virtual hard disk.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum	Cluster, Node, VHD
VHD Size Current	The current file size of the virtual hard disk, if dynamically expanding. If fixed, the series isn't collected.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, Instance
VHD Size Maximum	The maximum size of the virtual hard disk, if dynamically expanding.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, VHD

Metrics for VMs

Metric	Description	Unit	Default Aggregation Type	Supported Aggregation Type	Dimensions
VM Percentage CPU	Percentage the virtual machine is using of its host node's processor(s).	Percent	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VM
VM Memory Assigned	The quantity of memory assigned to the virtual machine.	Bytes	Sum	Minimum, Maximum	Cluster, Node, LUN, VM
VM Memory Available	The quantity of memory that remains available, of the amount assigned.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, VM, LUN
VM Memory Used	VM Memory Used	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum	Cluster, Node, VM, LUN
VM Memory Maximum	If using dynamic memory, this is the maximum quantity of memory that might be assigned to the virtual machine.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, LUN, VM
VM Memory Minimum	If using dynamic memory, this is the minimum quantity of memory that might be assigned to the virtual machine.	Bytes	Minimum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, LUN, VM
VM Memory Pressure	The ratio of memory demanded by the virtual machine over memory allocated to the virtual machine.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, LUN, VM
VM Memory Startup	The quantity of memory required for the virtual machine to start.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, LUN, VM
VM Memory Total	Total memory.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, VM, LUN
VM network adapter Network In/Sec	Rate of data received by the virtual machine across all its virtual network adapters.	Bits Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Virtual Network Adapter
VM network adapter Network Out/Sec	Rate of data sent by the virtual machine across all its virtual network adapters.	Bits Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Virtual Network Adapter
VM network adapter Network In and Out/Sec	Total rate of data received or sent by the virtual machine across all its virtual network adapters.	Bits Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, Virtual Network Adapter

Metrics for volumes

Metric	Description	Unit	Default Aggregation Type	Supported Aggregation Type	Dimensions
Disk Read Operations/Sec	Number of read operations per second completed by this volume.	Count Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Disk Write Operations/Sec	Number of write operations per second completed by this volume.	Count Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Disk Read and Write Operations/Sec	Total number of read or write operations per second completed by this volume.	Count Per Second	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Disk Read Bytes/Sec	Quantity of data read from this volume per second.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Disk Write Bytes/Sec	Quantity of data written to this volume per second.	Bytes Per Second	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Disk Read and Write	Total quantity of data read from or written to this volume per second.	Bytes Per Second	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN
Volume Latency Read	Average latency of read operations from this volume.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum	Cluster, Node, LUN
Volume Latency Write	Average latency of write operations to this volume.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum	Cluster, Node, LUN
Volume Latency Average	Average latency of all operations to or from this volume.	Seconds	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Sum	Cluster, Node, LUN
Volume Size Total	The total storage capacity of the volume.	Bytes	Sum	Minimum, Maximum, Average	Cluster, Node, LUN
Volume Size Available	The available storage capacity of the volume.	Bytes	Maximum	Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Count	Cluster, Node, LUN

To see in-depth information about how these metrics are collected, see Performance history for Storage Spaces Direct.

Next steps

• Monitor a single Azure Local system with Insights
• Monitor multiple Azure Local systems with Insights