Exploring monitoring tools

There are a number of tools available that help us monitor, alert, analyze, and visualize our logs. Some require additional steps to be configured, as we saw in the previous section when we configured activity logs, to also output them to a Log Analytics workspace; others are available automatically.

By default, basic logs and metrics can be visualized in the Azure portal via the Metrics and Activity Log blades either at the subscription or component level.

Activity logs

The following screenshot shows the Activity Log blade when looking at a VM:

Figure 15.7 – Azure activity log

Here we can see the most recent Azure plane events, which are useful for troubleshooting events; for example, if the VM had been shut down, the event would be listed in the Azure activity log.

Events can be filtered by clicking the menu options to change the scope of Management Group, Subscription, Event severity, and Timespan. Additional filters can be added by...