Monitoring Azure Load Balancer

Instana offers comprehensive monitoring of your Azure Load Balancer by providing end-to-end visibility into your environment. After you install the Instana host agent, the Azure Load Balancer sensor is automatically installed and enabled. You can view the infrastructure metrics that are related to the Azure Load Balancer in the Instana UI.

For more information about other supported Azure services, see Azure.

Configuring the Azure Load Balancer sensor

To monitor your Azure Load Balancer, complete the following steps:

  1. Enable the Azure service in the agent configuration file (<agentinstall_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yaml) by using the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure:
      enabled: true
      subscription: "[Your-Subscription-Id]"
      tenant: "[Your-Tenant-Id]"
      principals:
        - id: "[Your-Service-Principal-Account-Id]"
          secret: "[Your-Service-Principal-Secret]"
    

    For more information about installing the Azure agent, see Installation.

  2. Make sure the Azure Load Balancer sensor is enabled in the agent configuration file (<agentinstall_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yaml):

    com.instana.plugin.azure.loadbalancer:
    enabled: true
    

Defining tags and resource groups for service filtering

You can define multiple tags and resource groups that are separated by a comma. The tags must be defined as a key-value pair that is separated by a colon (:). To simplify the configuration, define the tags and resource groups for inclusion or exclusion in discovery. If a tag or resource group is defined in both include and exclude lists, the excluded list takes precedence. If you want to include all services without filtering, avoid defining any configuration.

  • To include services with tags into discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.loadbalancer:
      include_tags: # Comma separated list of tags in key:value format (e.g. env:prod,env:staging)
    
  • To exclude services with tags from discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.loadbalancer:
      exclude_tags: # Comma separated list of tags in key:value format (e.g. env:dev,env:test)
    
  • To include services with resource groups into discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.loadbalancer:
      include_resource_groups: # Comma separated list of resource groups (e.g. rg_prod,rg_staging)
    
  • To exclude services with resource groups from discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.loadbalancer:
      exclude_resource_groups: # Comma separated list of resource groups (e.g. rg_dev,rg_test)
    

Discovery filtering can be configured on the global level for all Azure services. When you define filters for Azure Load Balancer, global filters are overridden. For more information about the global discovery filtering of the Azure service, see Azure Configuration.

Disabling the Azure Load Balancer sensor

To disable monitoring of the Azure Load Balancer services, use the following configuration:

com.instana.plugin.azure.loadbalancer:
  enabled: false

Viewing metrics

To view the metrics, complete the following steps:

  1. From the navigation menu in the Instana UI, select Infrastructure.
  2. Click a specific monitored host.

You can see a host dashboard with all the collected metrics and monitored processes.

Metrics are pulled every minute, which is the resolution that Azure provides for the monitoring of these services.

Configuration data

Namespace details Description
Name Name of the Load Balancer
Resource Group Resource group of the Load Balancer
Location Location of the Load Balancer
Type Type of the resource
Provisioning State Provisioning state of the Load Balancer

Performance metrics

Metric Name Unit Aggregation Description
SNAT Connections
Count SnatConnectionCount Count Total Total number of new SNAT connections created within time period
Bytes
Bytes ByteCount Count Total Total number of Bytes transmitted within time period
Packets
Packets PacketCount Count Count The total number of service API hits
SNAT Ports
Allocated AllocatedSnatPorts Count Average Total number of SNAT ports allocated within time period
Used UsedSnatPorts Count Average Total number of SNAT ports used within time period
DIP Availability
Count DipAvailability Count Average Average Load Balancer health probe status per time duration
VIP Availability
Count VipAvailability Count Average Average Load Balancer data path availability per time duration
SYN Packets
Packets SYNCount Count Total Total number of SYN Packets transmitted within time period