Monitoring Azure Service Bus

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

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

Configuring the Azure Service Bus sensor

To monitor your Azure Service Bus, complete the following configurations:

  • Enable the Azure Service Bus in the agent configuration file <agentinstall_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yaml as follows:

    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.

  • Ensure that the Azure Service Bus sensor is enabled in the agent configuration file. You can also configure tags and resource groups as described in the Defining tags and resource groups for service filtering section. Queue and Topic monitored by the Azure Service Bus sensor can be filtered using regex patterns.

    com.instana.plugin.azure.servicebus:
  enabled: true # Valid values: true, false. Enabled (true) by default
  include_tags: # Comma separated list of tags in key:value format (e.g. env:prod,env:staging)
  exclude_tags: # Comma separated list of tags in key:value format (e.g. env:dev,env:test)
  include_resource_groups: # Comma separated list of resource groups (e.g. rg_prod,rg_staging)
  exclude_resource_groups: # Comma separated list of resource groups (e.g. rg_dev,rg_test)
  queuesRegex: '.*' # Regex pattern used for matching monitored queues
  topicsRegex: '.*' # Regex pattern used for matching monitored topic

You can disable the Azure Service Bus sensor.

  • queuesRegex: Optional regex pattern that is used for filtering queues by name
  • topicsRegex: Optional regex pattern that is used for filtering topics by name

Disabling the Azure Service Bus sensor

To disable monitoring of the Azure Service Bus services, use the following configuration:

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

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 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 by using tags into discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.servicebus:
  include_tags: # Comma separated list of tags in key:value format (e.g. env:prod,env:staging)

  • To exclude services by using tags from discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.servicebus:
  exclude_tags: # Comma separated list of tags in key:value format (e.g. env:dev,env:test)

  • To include services by using resource groups into discovery, use the following configuration:

    com.instana.plugin.azure.servicebus:
  include_resource_groups: # Comma separated list of resource groups (e.g. rg_prod,rg_staging)

  • To exclude services by using resource groups from discovery, use the following configuration:

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

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

Viewing metrics

To view the metrics, complete the following steps:

  1. In the sidebar of 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

Namespace details Description
Name Namespace name
Resource Group Resource group of the namespace
Location Namespace location
Subscription Id Subscription ID of the namespace
Type Type of the resource
Status Status of the namespace
Tier Billing tier of this particular namespace
Created Time when the namespace was created

Configuration data queues

Queue details Description
Name Queue name
Status Possible values for the status of queue
Max Size Size of memory allocated for the queue
Size Size of the queue in bytes
Messages Number of messages in the queue
Active Messages Number of active messages in the queue
Dead Letter Messages Number of messages that are dead lettered in the queue

Configuration data topics

Topic details Description
Name Topic name
Status Possible values for the status of topic
Max Size Size of memory that is allocated for the topic
Size Size of the topic in bytes
Active Messages Number of active messages in the topic
Dead Letter Messages Number of messages that are dead lettered in the topic

Performance metrics namespace

Metric Name Unit Aggregation Description
Connections
Count activeConnections Count Total The total number of active connections within a minute window
Count connectionsOpened Count Average The average number of opened connections within a minute window
Count connectionsClosed Count Average The time that is taken by the Service Bus to complete the request
Server
Count serverErrors Count Total The total number of requests that are not processed in a Service Bus within a minute window
Milliseconds serverSendLatency Milliseconds Average The time that is taken by the Service Bus service to complete the request and is averaged over one-minute time interval
Messages
Count incomingMessages Count Total The total number of events or messages that are sent to a Service Bus within a minute window
Count outgoingMessages Count Total The total number of events or messages that are received from Service Bus within a minute window
Requests
Count incomingRequests Count Total The total number of requests that are made to the Service Bus service within a minute window
Count successfulRequests Count Total The total number of successful requests that are made to the Service Bus within a minute window
Count throttledRequests Count Total The total number of requests that are throttled because usage was exceeded within a minute window

Performance metrics queues

Metric Name Unit Aggregation Description
Size
Count Size Bytes Average The size of the queue in bytes.
Messages
Count ActiveMessages Count Average The total number of active messages in a queue within a minute window
Count DeadletteredMessages Count Total The total number of dead lettered messages in a queue within a minute window
Count AbandonMessage Count Total The total number of abandoned messages in a queue within a minute window
Count CompleteMessage Count Average The total number of completed messages in a queue within a minute window
Count ScheduledMessages Count Average The total number of scheduled messages in a queue within a minute window
Count Messages Count Total The total number of active messages in a queue within a minute window

Performance metrics topics

Metric Name Unit Aggregation Description
Size
Count Size Bytes Average The size of the topic in bytes.
Messages
Count ActiveMessages Count Average The total number of active messages in a topic within a minute window
Count DeadletteredMessages Count Total The total number of dead lettered messages in a topic within a minute window
Count AbandonMessage Count Total The total number of abandoned messages in a topic within a minute window
Count CompleteMessage Count Average The total number of completed messages in a topic within a minute window
Count ScheduledMessages Count Average The total number of scheduled messages in a topic within a minute window

Health signatures

Each sensor has a curated knowledgebase of health signatures that are evaluated continuously against the incoming metrics and are used to raise issues or incidents that depend on user impact.

Built-in events trigger issues or incidents based on failing health signatures on entities, and custom events trigger issues or incidents based on the thresholds of an individual metric of any specific entity.

For more information about built-in events for Azure Service Bus Sensor, see the Built-in events reference.