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azure-diagnostics-configure-applicationinsights.md

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Configure Azure Diagnostics to send data to Application Insights | Microsoft Docs
Update the Azure Diagnostics public configuration to send data to Application Insights.
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12/15/2015
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Configure Azure Diagnostics to send data to Application Insights

Azure diagnostics stores data to Azure Storage tables. However, you can also pipe all or a subset of the data to Application Insights by configuring “sinks” and “channels” in your configuration when using Azure Diagnostics extension 1.5 or later.

This article describes how to create the public configuration for the Azure Diagnostics extension so that its configured to send data to Application Insights.

Configuring Application Insights as a Sink

The Azure diagnostics extension 1.5 introduces the element in the public configuration. This defines the additional sink where the Azure diagnostics data can be sent. You can specify the details of the Application Insights resource where you want to send the Azure diagnostics data as part of this . An example SinksConfig looks like this -

<SinksConfig>
    <Sink name="ApplicationInsights">
      <ApplicationInsights>{Insert InstrumentationKey}</ApplicationInsights>
      <Channels>
        <Channel logLevel="Error" name="MyTopDiagData"  />
        <Channel logLevel="Verbose" name="MyLogData"  />
      </Channels>
    </Sink>
  </SinksConfig>

For the Sink element the name attribute specifies a string value that will be used to uniquely refer to the sink. The ApplicationInsights element specifies instrumentation key of the Application insights resource where the Azure diagnostics data will be sent. If you don't have an existing Application Insights resource, see Create a new Application Insights resource for more information on creating a resource and getting the instrumentation key.

If you are developing a Cloud Service project with Azure SDK 2.8 this instrumentation key is automatically populated in the public configuration based on the APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY service configuration setting when packaging the cloud service project. See Use Application Insights with Azure Diagnostics to troubleshoot Cloud Service issues.

The Channels element lets you define one or more Channel elements for the data that will be sent to the sink. The channel acts like a filter and allows you to select specific log levels that you would want to send to the sink. For example you could collect verbose logs and send them to storage but you could choose to define a channel with a log level of Error and when you send logs through that channel only error logs will be sent to that sink. For a Channel the name attribute is used to uniquely refer to that channel. The loglevel attribute lets you specify the log level that the channel will allow. The available log levels in order of most least information are

  • Verbose
  • Information
  • Warning
  • Error
  • Critical

Send data to the Application Insights sink

Once the Application Insights sink has been defined you can send data to that sink by adding the sink attribute to the elements under the DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration node. Adding the sinks element to each node specifies that you want data collected from that node and any node under it to be sent to the sink specified.

For example, if you want to send all the data that is being collected by Azure diagnostics then you can add the sink attribute directly to the DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration node. Set the value of the sinks to the Sink name that was specified in the SinkConfig.

<DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration overallQuotaInMB="4096" sinks="ApplicationInsights">

If you wanted to send only error logs to the Application Insights sink then you can set the sinks value to be the Sink name followed by the channel name separated by a period ("."). For example to send only error logs to the Application Insights sink use the MyTopDiagdata channel which was defined in the SinksConfig above.

<DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration overallQuotaInMB="4096" sinks="ApplicationInsights.MyTopDiagdata">

If you only wanted to send Verbose application logs to Application Insights then you would add the sinks attribute to the Logs node.

<Logs scheduledTransferPeriod="PT1M" scheduledTransferLogLevelFilter="Verbose" sinks="ApplicationInsights.MyLogData"/>

You can also include multiple sinks in the configuration at different levels in the hierarchy. In that case the sink specified at the top level of the hierarchy acts as a global setting and the one specified at the individual element acts like an override to that global setting.

Here is a complete example of the public configuration file that sends all errors to Application Insights (specified at the DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration node) and in addition Verbose level logs for the Application Logs (specified at the Logs node).

<WadCfg>
  <DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration overallQuotaInMB="4096"
       sinks="ApplicationInsights.MyTopDiagData"> <!-- All info below sent to this channel -->
    <DiagnosticInfrastructureLogs />
    <PerformanceCounters>
      <PerformanceCounterConfiguration counterSpecifier="\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time" sampleRate="PT3M" sinks="ApplicationInsights.MyLogData/>
      <PerformanceCounterConfiguration counterSpecifier="\Memory\Available MBytes" sampleRate="PT3M" />
      <PerformanceCounterConfiguration counterSpecifier="\Web Service(_Total)\Bytes Total/Sec" sampleRate="PT3M" />
    </PerformanceCounters>
    <WindowsEventLog scheduledTransferPeriod="PT1M">
      <DataSource name="Application!*" />
    </WindowsEventLog>
    <Logs scheduledTransferPeriod="PT1M" scheduledTransferLogLevelFilter="Verbose"
            sinks="ApplicationInsights.MyLogData"/> <!-- This specific info sent to this channel -->
  </DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration>

<SinksConfig>
    <Sink name="ApplicationInsights">
      <ApplicationInsights>{Insert InstrumentationKey}</ApplicationInsights>
      <Channels>
        <Channel logLevel="Error" name="MyTopDiagData"  />
        <Channel logLevel="Verbose" name="MyLogData"  />
      </Channels>
    </Sink>
  </SinksConfig>
</WadCfg>

Diagnostics Public Configuration

There are some limitations to be aware of with this functionality

  • Channels are only meant to work with log type and not performance counters. If you specify a channel with a performance counter element it will be ignored.
  • The log level for a channel cannot exceed the log level for what is being collected by Azure diagnostics. For example: you cannot collect Application Log errors in the Logs element and try to send Verbose logs to the Application Insight sink. The scheduledTransferLogLevelFilter attribute must always collect equal or more logs than the logs you are trying to send to a sink.
  • You cannot send any blob data collected by Azure diagnostics extension to Application Insights. For example anything specified under the Directories node. For Crash Dumps the actual crash dump will still be sent to blob storage and only a notification that the crash dump was generated will be sent to Application Insights.

Next Steps

  • Use PowerShell to enable the Azure diagnostics extension for your application.
  • Use Visual Studio to enable the Azure diagnostics extension for your application