Introduction

A Windows Azure hosted service may comprise multiple instances of multiple roles. These instances all run in a remote Windows Azure data center—typically 24*7. The ability to monitor these instances non-intrusively is essential both in detecting failure and in capacity planning.

Windows Azure Diagnostics provides for the non-intrusive capture of diagnostic data and its subsequent persistence to the Windows Azure Storage Service. It supports various standard sources, allowing for their extensibility where appropriate. Windows Azure Diagnostics also integrates custom logs directly into its normal operational mode.

Diagnostic data can be used to identify problems with a hosted service. The ability to view the data from several sources and across different instances eases the task of identifying a problem.

Diagnostic data can be used to identify when service capacity is either too high or too low for the expected workload. This can guide capacity decisions such as whether to scale...