Microsoft Azure - Creating Action Rules With Azure Monitor

Pre-requisite:- Azure VM

The Azure Monitor is one of the services offered by Microsoft Azure. As the name suggests, it is a kind of monitor which helps the user to maximize the availability and performance of the applications and services according to the needs of the user. It delivers a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from the users' cloud and on-premises environments.

For example, the option ‘Application Insights” can easily detect and diagnose issues across applications and dependencies. Log Analytics can be used for troubleshooting and deep diagnostics. Apart from this, there are other options available such as Support operations like automated actions,  Azure dashboards and workbooks for creating visualizations, and more. 

In this article, we will discuss Azure monitor and how can we create action rules with the help of Azure Monitor.

 Working:

Azure Action groups are collections of action rules that are defined by the user in Azure Monitor. Basically, their work is to notify or trigger an alert once the Azure monitor identifies a problem with the application or infrastructure. In such a case, Azure Monitor, Azure Service Health, and Azure Advisor then use action groups to notify users through alerts so that the necessary actions could be taken. 

Each action is made up depending on the properties like Name, Details, and type. For example, a Name includes name-related information or a unique identifier within the action group,  Details contain the information details vary by its type. Type includes the notification type, that will be sent, for instance, voice call, message, or email. Apart from this, there are some other types of Automated actions, which can be set as per the requirements of the user. 

Users can configure their own preferred action rules based on their requirements. Here are a few simple Guiding steps to help configure groups in Azure. 

Creating Action Rules Using the Azure Monitor:

Step 1: Open the Azure portal.

Step 2: Select Monitor, where all the monitoring settings and data can be viewed. 

Step 3: Next, Select Alerts, and then Action groups, as can be seen in the image below:

Step 4: Here, Select the Create button as shown in the image.

Step 5: The next step follows Entering the information as follows:

Configure Basic Action Group:

Step 1: First, choose values for the Resource Group and Subscription fields under Project details.

Step 2: Also, Select the region

Step 3: The subscription, region, and resource group that a user chooses are all saved with the action group.

Step 4: Here, Under the ‘Instance details’, enter values for ‘Action group name’ and ‘Display name’. While sending the notifications through the group, the display name is substituted for the full action group name.

Configuring the Notifications:

Step 1: Select Next: Notifications to access the Notifications tab. Alternatively, click the Notifications tab at the top of the page.

Step 2: Here, Define the list of notifications to send when an alert is triggered. 

For each notification, specify the following information:

• Notification type: Select the preferred type of notification that will be sent. For instance: 
  (a) Email Azure Resource Manager Role: Send an email to users with specific subscription-level Azure Resource Manager roles.
  (b) Email/SMS message/Push/Voice: Send different notification types to particular recipients.
   
• Name: Enter name-related details for the notification.
   
• Details: As per the selected notification type, mention the details like an email address, phone number, or other information.

Common Alert Schema: Another option on the list is "Common Alert Schema," which, when enabled, can give users control over all of the Monitor's alert services through a single extensible and unified alert payload.

Step 3: Next, tap on the OK button.

Configuring the Actions:

Step 1: By choosing Next: Actions, the Actions tab will be displayed. The Actions tab can also be chosen from the menu at the top of the page.

Step 2: The next step requires defining a list of actions, which will be carried out when an alert will be triggered. For example, the Action Type, Name, details, etc. 

Step 3: Here, a user can also choose to enable the common Alert schema as the unified alert payload service, to get access to all the alert services provided by Azure Monitor.

Create the Action Group

Step 1: Here, The user can choose "Next: Tags" if they wish to give the action group a key-value pair. If not, they can simply skip this step. The Azure resources can be categorized using tags.

Select Review + create to view the settings. This process can quickly verify the inputs to make sure all necessary data has been entered. Issues are reported here if there are any. After reviewing the settings, click "Create" to start creating the action group.