Unified monitoring view in Kubernetes : Linking infrastructure monitoring with application monitoring

Introduction

Typically you notice that there are two dimensions / viewpoints when it comes to monitoring. On one side there is a team that wants to view everything related to the “infrastructure”, like for instance the kubernetes cluster. On the other hand, there is the typical application performance monitoring that starts from the application side. Sadly enough, in a lot of cases, those two are separated islands… 😦

 

As you might know, on the Azure front you can do Application Performance Monitoring with Application Insights and there is like a really awesome integration with Azure Monitor (“Log Analytics”) from the container space (kubernetes). Though I see you thinking it… Two separate solutions. Though, what a lot of people forget, is that they are actually using “Log Analytics” under the hood. And… That you can query across workspaces in Log Analytics! Which means that you can join the two and have an aggregated view to span both worlds.

 

Let’s take a look!

For this test, I’ve created a k8s cluster which is linked to a separate log analytics work-space. Where next to it, there is an application (Azure Function) inside of a docker container that is linked to Application Insights.

 

Deploying OMS for Docker via Rancher

Introduction
Today we’ll be deploying Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS) for Docker via Rancher… Sound cool? It is! Basically we’re going to do the following guide and add Rancher to the twist.

For those unfamiliar with the Microsoft offering and more knowledgeable  in the OSS community. Imaging OMS as being the Microsoft counterpart of a typical ELK stack. The advantage is that it’s managed and that there are already a lot of integrations possible.