Monitoring Azure virtual machines
With Instana, you can monitor Azure virtual machine (VM) instances through the Azure VM sensor. The sensor is automatically deployed when you install the Instana agent on an Azure VM and functions only when the agent is running directly on the VM.
Supported information
To ensure that the Azure VM sensor is compatible with your current setup, see the support information section in Azure documentation.
Configuring Azure VM monitoring
The Azure VM sensor is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration. It automatically detects the Instana agent running on an Azure VM by connecting to the Azure Instance Metadata Service.
Disabling Azure VM monitoring
To disable the Azure VM sensor, use the following configuration in <agent_install_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yml:
com.instana.plugin.azure:
enabled: falseViewing Azure VM data
To view Azure VM data in the Instana UI, complete the following steps:
- In the Instana UI, click Infrastructure.
- Click the Analyse Infrastructure button.
- In the Filter by field, select Azure Instance. The table displays all discovered Azure VM instances with their metadata.
The sensor retrieves instance metadata from the Azure Instance Metadata Service endpoint (http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance), which is only accessible from within Azure VMs. It requires the Instana agent to run on the VM. It collects this static metadata once during sensor activation and provides static configuration information about the VM instance.
Tracked configuration
The Azure VM sensor provides only host monitoring and collects snapshot data from the Azure Instance Metadata Service. The sensor does not collect performance metrics.
| VM details | Description |
|---|---|
| Instance ID | A unique identifier assigned to the Azure VM instance |
| Name | The user-defined name of the Azure VM |
| Type | The Azure VM size or specification |
| Availability Zone | The physical Azure datacenter zone where the VM is deployed |
Limitations
- No performance metrics: The Azure VM sensor collects only static instance metadata and does not monitor performance metrics, such as CPU usage, memory utilization, disk I/O, or network traffic.
- Host monitoring only: The sensor focuses on identifying and tracking only the Azure VM host configuration.