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What is Azure VM Insights?

Microsoft recently announced general availability of Azure VM Insights, aka Azure Monitor for VM. This service is basically a set of features that allow you to monitor your VMs in more detail, from collecting the telemetry from your VM to displaying it meaningfully – all with a single click. I am satisfied with Azure VM Insights for the most part, but I also have some mixed feelings about it. Read on to find out why.

Azure Monitor Agents: their different functions

In the Azure Monitor Learning Path, we talked about metrics and collecting data in a Log Analytics workspace to be operated on with KQL. As a part of it, we also talked about Monitoring Solutions and how they help you collect data into the workspace that is more focused for specific purposes. In that series, our main focus was on the Log Analytics Agent and I briefly talked about Diagnostics extension.

SCOMathon 2020 Can virtual events actually be better than face-to-face ones?

The short answer is “yes they can” but let me elaborate. In 2009 I joined the team behind Mobile World Congress, an event brand that hosts over 100k attendees in Barcelona, 75k in Shanghai and 22k in Los Angeles. I spent the next 9 years with the GSM Association, owner of Mobile World Congress, and Global Expansion Summit organizing over 50 large scale events across all 5 continents.

Aggregating and Visualizing Data with Kusto

Got the basics down and ready to move on to more advanced aspects of Kusto? You’ve come to the right place! Here you will learn how to use aggregation functions, visualize query results and put your data into context. If you’re just getting started with Kusto, check out our ‘Jumpstart Guide to Kusto’ before starting on this one. Let’s get into it!

6 steps we took to regain control of our Azure spend at SquaredUp

In this write-up of our special webinar, we'll give you an insider’s look into how we took control of our Azure costs, and how you can do the same. We’ll take you through how we identified the problems and implemented lasting solutions to keep things under control. You’ll get to hear from our key stakeholders involved - Finance, Management, IT, Engineering.

Azure Dashboards: SquaredUp vs. Azure Portal (Part 3 - Cost Management)

Previously on this Azure dashboards series, we covered making dashboards natively in the Azure portal vs. SquaredUp for Azure for VMInsights and AppInsights. In this third and final part we will be comparing our dashboard experiences when it comes to cloud cost management and visualization. We’ve already talked about the resource-level cost dashboards in the previous parts, our main goal in this one is to display costs on the subscription level. Alright, let’s jump straight into it!

Azure dashboards: SquaredUp vs. Azure portal (Part 2 - Application Insights)

In Part 1 of this series, we compared the Azure portal vs. SquaredUp in terms of how easy it is to make a VM-level dashboard and how good that dashboard is in terms of features and functionality. In this one, we will compare the two portals in terms of application-level dashboards.

Azure dashboards: Azure Portal vs. SquaredUp (Part 1 - VMInsights)

Be it be on-premise or in Azure, monitoring your resources is extremely important. While the popular monitoring tool to use on premise remains to be SCOM, many organizations with a presence in the cloud have started to explore Azure Monitor to fulfil their monitoring needs in Azure. Recently, we discussed Azure Monitor and its capabilities extensively in our Azure Monitor Learning Path blog series.