Why and How to Monitor App Performance in Azure

Why and How to Monitor Application Performance in Azure

March 28th, 2016

© 2015 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 2

Abstract:This presentation provides a brief overview of APM solutions for the Azure cloud computing platform. We discuss three challenges unique to cloud computing which APM can address, and we summarize which APM techniques can be applied in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS application architectures. To illustrate APM techniques for IaaS and PaaS we look at a variety APM offers in the Azure marketplace, including Riverbed AppInternals, Microsoft Application Insights, and New Relic. To illustrate APM techniques for SaaS, we look at how SharePoint Online can be instrumented using JavaScript injection. This presentation was prepared and delivered by Ian Downard to the Portland Azure User Group on March 28th, 2016, in Portland Oregon.

Keywords:Azure, APM, application performance, AppInternals


Ian DownardCloud Solutions Architect | Riverbed Technology

Optimizing the performance of distributed applications for 15 years.

Technical evangelist for Riverbed AppInternals.

And currently trying to learn everything there is to know about Azure.

Twitter: @iandownard

https://twitter.com/iandownard


Why APM in the cloud?

What APM features are built into Azure?

Survey 3rd party APM: Riverbed AppInternals, New Relic, & AppInsights

APM constraints in IaaS / PaaS / SaaSAPM demos for Azure VMs, Azure Cloud Services, Azure Web Sites, SharePoint Online

What does APM cost?


ApplicationsData

FirewallNetwork

OSVirtualization

Hardware

ApplicationsData

Firewall RulesNetwork

OSVirtualization

Hardware

ApplicationsData


OSVirtualization

Hardware

ApplicationsData


OSVirtualization

Hardware

On Premise Azure IaaS(Virtual Machines)

Azure PaaS(Cloud Services)

Azure SaaS(“Web Sites”, O365)

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http://riverbed.com/blogs/AppInternals-APM-for-Azure.html

Why is APM important for Cloud Computing?


“Right Size”Your Scale

3 reasons.

MitigateUnpredictable Performance

Verify Cloud Vendor SLAs

Matching capacity to demand can save $

Sharing hardware is risky

Trust but verify


What unpredictable performance?

MitigateUnpredictable Performance


Response times for queries sent to EC2, AppEngine and Azure varied by a factor of 20 depending on the service and time of day the cloud was accessed.

Stress Tests Rain on Amazon’s Cloud. IT News (August 2009)http://www.itnews.com.au/news/stress-tests-rain-on-amazons-cloud-153451


• Feb 18 and March 9 – Google Compute Engine down for 1 hour

• March 11 – Apple iCloud down for 12 hours due to DNS error

• March 16 – 2 hour outage in Azure IaaS and PaaS due to “network issue”

The 10 Biggest Cloud Outages Of 2015. CRN Magazine (August 2015)http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/300077635/the-10-biggest-cloud-outages-of-2015-so-far.htm

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/300077635/the-10-biggest-cloud-outages-of-2015-so-far.htm




Our experience is that multiple virtual machines can share CPUs and main memory surprisingly well in cloud computing, but that network and disk I/O sharing is more problematic.

A View of Cloud Computing. Communications of the ACM (April 2010).Michael Armbrust, et al.


What’s the bestAPM solution

out there?


One-size-fits-allAPM does not exist.

How do you weigh your options?


What do you need from APM?Application maps End-to-End transaction tracingBusiness transaction metricsAlerting UIEasy to use UIWeb UIDashboard Web page object waterfall dataCentral configuration managementScalable management serverOn-Premise / SaaSCloud compatibleReady to use out of the box

Transaction searchSampling vs. Continuous tracingSampling frequencyBig-Data driven analyticsFull transaction historyApplication framework coverageQueue and async architecture supportEnd user experience monitoringTry and buyALM IntegrationSupports DevOps PracticesCross-tier

transaction stitchingLow instrumentation overheadExport CSV raw dataExport PDF reportsFeed Power BI, Splunk, etc Stream raw data to Azure blob storagePowerful analytics engineInsightful statistical graphicsSupport for statistical computingInstrumentation SDK / APIExtensibility (roll

your own agent)JavaScript injectionAgent based instrumentationLog AnalyticsCostOpen SourceFull stack monitoringKernel level tracingIntegration with packet capturesInstruments native codeMemory leak detectionBroad adoptionActive user communityCPU/Disk/Network resource monitoring


Lets survey some APM options in Azure.

Azure Native Azure Marketplace• Azure Diagnostics• AppInsights• Logging

• Riverbed AppInternals• Dynatrace Ruxit• New Relic


Azure Diagnostics Enable during provisioning View data in the Azure Portal

UI Save data in blob storage


Azure Diagnostics Configure metrics under VM

details Raw data saved in table storage


Azure Linux Agent (waagent) https://github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent– Pulls extensions and configurations at provision-time.

– Extensions, such as this one:Microsoft.OSTCExtensions.LinuxDiagnostic

– Configures swap space, snapshooting, encryption, diagnostics, custom post-provision scripts

– Pings a “wire” service for a new gold state every 25 seconds. Versions determined at run-time.

– Runs under, /var/lib/waagent/

Azure Diagnostics for Linux

https://github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent




Instrumentation for Azure web and worker roles

View data in Azure Portal

Easy to use for downtime alerting.

Instrument via SDK, recorded web scripts, agents, et al.

We use it for monitoring http://appinternals.trafficmanager.net

AppInsights

http://appinternals.trafficmanager.net/

http://appinternals.trafficmanager.net/



Data resolution is not intended to be comprehensive.

AppInsights

“We don’t store all results”


Outages do occur.

AppInsights

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/applicationinsights-status/

Thank You


AppInsights Demo

Click here to start demo


ArchitectingAPM for Azure IaaS

Install an APM

agent here.


Instrumenting SharePoint Farms in Azure IaaS

DEMO

https://cruiser3.cloudapp.net/%23search:time=24112393+60&_rb_use_cache=true&apply_globals=true&context_name=context%20(optional)&query=dXJscGF0aCA9ICouYXNweA==&search_datatype=RIVERPATH&topn_field=SLOWEST&topn_num_results=10000


Automation and Orchestration– Can you ensure APM agents are installed and configured automatically as

IaaS VMs are dynamically provisioned and destroyed?

Scaling APM management– Most APM solutions have limits on how much data they can handle.

Challenges for APM in IaaS


ArchitectingAPM for Azure PaaS


3rd Party APM vendors in Azure marketplace


Instrumenting with Startup Tasks and NuGetAPM for Azure PaaS

DEMOThis works for both Java and .NET cloud services!


Scaling APM management– Most APM solutions have limits on how much data they can handle.

Challenges for APM in PaaS


ArchitectingAPM for SaaS


You can not install agents. So what’s left?– JavaScript injection (via end-user customizations to the

SaaS app)– Client-side network monitoring (e.g. Riverbed

AppResponse)– Server-side network monitoring via cloud proxy (e.g.

Riverbed Steelhead)

Scaling APM management– Most APM solutions have limits on how much data they

can handle.

Challenges for APM in SaaS

In this presentation we are focusing on APM. We should discuss Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) later.


Embed JavaScript in Master Pages

Network monitoring

Case Study: Instrument SharePoint Online (SPO)

Customized Master Pages will not receive updates from Microsoft.

This is the best way to embed JavaScript in SPO sites.

Detailed on next slide.

Network appliances in your corporate data center can provide a vantage point into O365 performance.For example, with Riverbed Steelhead!

Embed JavaScript in UserCustomAction


Embedding JS in Master PagesSharePoint Online Instrumentation (Option #1)

1. Open Master Page Gallery

2. Check out seattle.master

3. Add JavaScript snippet in the head tag

4. Upload and check in seattle.master DEMO


Embedding JS with SPUserCustomActionSharePoint Online Instrumentation (Option #2)

1. Create a new “SharePoint Add-In” that is a provider hosted app2. Get the list of UserCustomActions3. Add a new custom action to that list, which invokes JavaScript on page load

See .NET API reference for SPUserCustomAction.ScriptBlock()4. Update the set of UserCustomActions on the SharePoint site

DEMOhttps://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-Guidance/blob/master/articles/Customize-your-SharePoint-site-UI-by-using-JavaScript.mdhttps://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP/tree/master/Samples/Core.EmbedJavaScripthttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Office-365-Dev/JavaScript-injection-in-SharePoint-Online-Office-365-Developer-Patterns-and-Practices

References:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/microsoft.sharepoint.spusercustomaction.scriptblock.aspx

https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-Guidance/blob/master/articles/Customize-your-SharePoint-site-UI-by-using-JavaScript.md



https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP/tree/master/Samples/Core.EmbedJavaScript

https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP/tree/master/Samples/Core.EmbedJavaScript

https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Office-365-Dev/JavaScript-injection-in-SharePoint-Online-Office-365-Developer-Patterns-and-Practices




Option #2 requires sideloading, or you’ll get this error:

Here’s how to enable sideloading of apps in SharePoint:

Install the SharePoint Online Management Shell

Save this as Enable.ps1

Run Enable.ps1

Save this as Disable.ps1

Run Disable.ps1

http://pastebin.com/cLkJNnf3

http://pastebin.com/yqKNb1Mx






Detect ErrorsBaseline Performance Track Users Security Audits

What does SaaS monitoring give you?

What is “normal” performance?

Verify cloud SLAs

Who are the power users?

What user accounts are inactive?

Detect unauthorized users

Geo locate intrusions

Do some pages return errors?

What path lead to errors?


Here’s what Riverbed AppInternals can do with SaaS data..


http://appinternals.com

http://www.appinternals.com/




References

Riverbed AppInternals - http://appinternals.com New Relic – http://newrelic.com Microsoft AppInsights –

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-insights-get-started/

http://appinternals.com/

http://newrelic.com/




Thank You


Questions?