TechPrufer
Get started
Microsoft
Microsoft logoMicrosoft · Feature trail

Application Insights Deployment Markers

46 posts · Nov 2013 – Nov 2016

What this trail covers

Application Insights provides visibility into application usage, availability, and performance. It enables data-driven decision-making for product owners by collecting real usage data, allowing for testing hypotheses about potential changes and evaluating their impact. Features include sales funnel analysis, experiment execution (e.g., A/B testing price changes), and bug impact assessment by correlating crashes and exceptions with environmental factors. The platform offers a 360-degree view of a This thread tracks the evolution of Application Insights, a service providing actionable insights into production applications. It covers out-side-in availability monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM) including exceptions, memory usage, dependency, and system information, and data-driven decisions through customer usage analytics. Data is surfaced via dynamic reports, email alerts, and customizable dashboards. This post announces the preview of Application Insights, highlighting its ability to integrate production monitoring with development tools to enable higher quality code, decrease rework, and reduce cycle times. It specifically mentions the integration of deployment markers with availability monitoring, allowing users to open the changeset associated with a deployment when viewing availability reports.

All Microsoft trails
  1. Issue with using Application Insights with load testsThis post details an issue where Application Insights metrics collection fails during load tests configured in Visual Studio. The problem is attributed to an infrastructure issue, with a fix expected by February 24th. A workaround involves viewing metrics via the Azure portal or APIs. The post also mentions an error message seen in the load test editor when configuring applications for app-side metrics collection.
  2. Monitor Team Services web extensions with Visual Studio Application InsightsThis post details how to integrate Application Insights into VSTS web extensions. It covers creating an Azure Application Insights resource, embedding the JavaScript SDK, and using `trackPageView` and `trackEvent` functions to monitor extension usage. It also explains how to include user and collection context in telemetry data without sending PII.
  3. Getting Application Insights counters with Cloud-based Load TestingThis post details how to enable the collection of Application Insights counters alongside Load Test counters when performing load tests using Cloud-based Load Testing with Visual Studio Online. It outlines the steps for configuring Application Insights counters within the load test settings, selecting desired counters from the metric explorer, and viewing these counters in the 'Application' tab during the load test run. The sampling rate for Application Insights counters is noted as one minute.
  4. Application Insights: Choose your own Performance CountersThis post introduces the ability to collect any Windows performance counters (standard or custom) within Application Insights for web applications using SDK version 0.14 or higher. It details how to configure these counters in `ApplicationInsights.config` or in code, how they are reported as custom metrics (with options for naming and segmentation), how to view them in Metric Explorer alongside other metrics, set up alerts on them, and provides diagnostic information for troubleshooting. It also lists default performance counters collected by Application Insights.
  5. Introducing the Application Insights SDK for JavaIntroduced the Application Insights SDK for Java, enabling Java web applications to send telemetry for usage analytics, performance monitoring, and diagnostic analysis to the Application Insights portal. This allows for server-side metrics of response times, request volumes, and user counts, as well as client-side insights from web pages. It also supports custom telemetry for events, metrics, and exceptions, and integrates with logging frameworks like Log4J and Logback. Web tests can be configured to monitor application health and responsiveness.
  7. Adding Application Insights to a Windows 8.1 Universal AppThis post details the integration of the Application Insights SDK into Windows 8.1 Universal Apps. It outlines the steps for creating an Application Insights resource in the Azure portal, obtaining the Instrumentation Key, and adding the SDK NuGet packages to both the Store and Phone projects. The post also explains how to configure the `ApplicationInsights.config` file with the Instrumentation Key and discusses the benefits of using a single key for both app types for unified telemetry analysis, while also supporting separate keys for isolated data collection. It highlights that the SDK automatically collects basic telemetry such as user and session tracking, page views, and contextual metadata.
  8. Exploring Data at Scale with New Capabilities in Application Insights and Metrics ExplorerThis post introduces new capabilities in Application Insights' Metrics Explorer for exploring large volumes of data and extracting key insights. Key features include: filtering data by properties like Country/Region and Browser; improved segmentation for breaking down metrics by dimensions; customizable grids for displaying data in tabular format with multi-metric support; and usability improvements such as hover-over time labels, info icons with metric descriptions, and comparison with the prior week's data. It also details how to add new charts, customize chart height, and create reports from scratch, including visualizing custom metrics.
  9. Modern Apps & Agile AnalyticsThis post introduces the use of Application Insights for collecting real usage data from customers to test hypotheses and evaluate the impact of changes. It provides examples of how Product Owners can use this data to make informed decisions about feature prioritization, such as analyzing sales funnels for in-game purchases or triaging bug reports by correlating crashes with environmental factors. The post highlights Application Insights as a tool for gaining a 360-degree view of application health and user engagement, enabling data-driven decision-making.
  10. Learn about your app’s usage with Application InsightsThis post introduces the new usage analysis experience for Application Insights, enabling users to answer common questions about app adoption, user profiles, user experience, and top features. It details how to analyze app adoption trends, user sessions, new vs. returning users, and user profiles by country/region and device. The post also explains how to understand user behavior within the app, identify popular pages/features, common error pages, and track custom events with properties to measure feature popularity and assess the impact of changes. It highlights the ability to correlate errors with specific user actions and track the success of new feature releases.
  11. Metrics Explorer - Custom metrics, events and propertiesThis post introduces the ability to track custom metrics, events, and properties in Application Insights. It details how to use `TrackEvent()` with custom properties and metrics, and `TrackMetric()` for independent measurements. The post provides code examples for recording events like file uploads/downloads, including associated properties like file type and size, and metrics like load time. It also demonstrates tracking pure metrics such as processing queue length and CPU occupancy at regular intervals. The post clarifies when to use `TrackEvent()` versus `TrackMetric()` for different telemetry scenarios.
  12. Application Insights: Moving from Visual Studio Online Portal to Azure Preview PortalThis post announces the transition of Application Insights from the Visual Studio Online Portal to the Azure Preview portal. New users will be directed to the Azure Preview portal starting mid-February 2015, with the Visual Studio Online portal being switched off mid-2015. The Azure Preview portal offers a simplified interface, interactive data exploration, data export capabilities, and enhanced SDK features that eliminate the need for an agent on each server for web application performance monitoring. A Status Monitor is still available for more comprehensive telemetry.
  13. Why Analytics?This post emphasizes the importance of analytics for understanding user behavior, detecting and diagnosing issues rapidly, and driving product direction. It highlights how analytics enable data-driven decisions for prioritizing efforts, improving user experience, and increasing engagement. The post specifically mentions Application Insights as a tool that provides a 360° view of an application's availability, performance, and usage, supporting both issue detection/diagnosis and usage analysis.
  14. Search your logs instantly using property filtersThis post introduces property filters to Application Insights Diagnostic Search, allowing engineers to quickly refine search queries by standard and custom properties. It demonstrates how to use these filters to narrow down search results, focusing on failed requests and specific error types, enabling faster root cause analysis and debugging.
  15. Application Insights support for Multiple Environments, Stamps and App VersionsIntroduced the ability to segregate telemetry data for different environments (Dev, Staging, Production) by using separate Application Insights resources with distinct instrumentation keys. Also introduced the concept of 'stamps' for comparing telemetry across multiple clusters or installations by adding custom tags to telemetry data. Furthermore, explained how to use application version IDs as standard telemetry attributes for version-to-version comparisons, particularly useful for A/B testing scenarios.
  16. Application Insights and Azure WebSitesThis post introduces an extension for Azure WebSites that enables deeper Application Performance Management (APM) scenarios. After enabling the extension and ensuring the Application Insights SDK is updated, users can view statistics and details on application dependencies, including time spent in SQL dependencies, number of SQL calls, and average duration. This allows for understanding if performance issues are due to app code or its dependencies.
  17. Application Insights - Metric Explorer (ME) – Part 2This post details the segmentation capabilities within the Metrics Explorer, allowing users to slice and dice telemetry data by various dimensions such as browser, device, and screen resolution to gain deeper insights into user behavior and application performance. It also covers setting up server performance metrics like request duration, dependency duration, and processor time, and correlating them with specific requests or dependencies.
  18. Application Insights: Exception TelemetryThis post details how to capture exception telemetry for various .NET application types (MVC, Web API, WCF, Web Forms/Pages) by overriding default error handling and using the TrackException API to send exceptions that the HTTPModule might miss, especially when CustomErrors is not 'Off'. It provides code examples for MVC (versions 2, 3, 4/5), Web API 1.x, and outlines approaches for Web API 2.x, WCF, and Web Forms/Pages.
  19. Export telemetry from Application InsightsIntroduced a continuous export feature for Application Insights telemetry to Azure Blob Storage. This allows users to export raw telemetry data in JSON format, enabling custom processing and analysis using tools like Data Factory, HDInsight, or custom code. The exported data includes raw telemetry (excluding web test results and calculated metrics) and adds location data derived from client IP addresses. Users are responsible for managing storage capacity and deleting old data. Recent updates include the ability to choose specific telemetry types for export and edit export configurations.
  20. Updated Application Insights Status Monitor to support .12 (and later) Application Insights SDKIntroduced a new runtime instrumentation agent for the Application Insights Status Monitor tool that requires the .12 (or later) Application Insights SDK. Added collection of the following Windows performance counters: % Process CPU, Available Memory, ASP.NET request rate, Exception rate, Process private bytes, Process IO rate, ASP.NET Request execution time, ASP.NET Requests in application queue, and % Processor time. These counters are collected every 1 minute. Provided instructions for updating the SDK and configuring necessary Windows privileges for the ASP.NET worker process identity to collect these counters. Noted that Windows performance counters are not collected on Windows Azure Websites and support is on the backlog.
  21. Application Insights - Metric Explorer - Part 1This post introduces the Metrics Explorer (ME) in Application Insights, detailing its functionality for analyzing client performance metrics. It explains how to drill down from the overview page to ME, which displays charts and grids for metrics like average browser page load time by base URL and browser exceptions by file name. The post also breaks down client timing metrics according to W3C navigation timing steps and explains how to customize charts by selecting different metrics and chart types. It categorizes metrics into Client, Failures, Performance counters, Server, and Usage, and explains why some metrics may appear greyed out due to scale and aggregation type compatibility.
  22. Application Insights SDK (0.11.0-prerelease)This post introduces version 0.11.0 of the Application Insights SDK, which includes a new, simpler Telemetry API (TelemetryClient) for sending telemetry data, automatic unhandled JavaScript error collection with call stack information, and enhancements to trace telemetry collection. The new API simplifies instrumentation with a single class and Track methods. The JavaScript SDK automatically collects exceptions and call stacks. Trace collection schema has been updated for consistent UI handling. This release is a pre-release NuGet version and is a breaking change from previous versions.
  23. Perform diagnostic search across your Application Insights telemetryThis post announces an upgrade to Application Insights' Diagnostic Search, enabling users to search all raw telemetry, including page views and trace log calls. It introduces the ability to filter events by type (Trace, Request, Page View, Custom Event) and provides a timeline chart summarizing search results. A breaking change is noted: a new SDK (0.11.0-prerelease) will be released on October 9th, requiring users to download and redeploy their apps to continue searching diagnostic logs.
  24. Application Insights tools in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3This post announces the release of Application Insights Tools 2.1, which are pre-installed in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3. This version integrates with the new Microsoft Azure Preview portal instead of the older Visual Studio Online portal. It details the differences between version 1.3.2 and 2.1, including compatibility, project types supported, and account requirements. It also provides instructions on how to upgrade to the latest tools, how to continue sending data to VSO from new projects by reverting to version 1.3.2, and how to migrate existing projects to send data to the new Azure portal by removing and re-adding Application Insights.
  25. Enhance your Application Availability Monitoring with VS 2013 Web Test PluginsThis post introduces the use of Web Test Plugins, specifically the Date Time Plugin, within Application Insights web tests. It demonstrates how to add these plugins to dynamically generate timestamps for request parameters like 'StartTime' and 'EndTime', enabling more realistic availability monitoring for applications requiring current or relative time data. The post provides step-by-step instructions and visual examples of configuring the plugin to use current time and subtract minutes, and how to reference these dynamic values in the web test request using {{ }} notation.
  26. Application Insights SDK (0.10.0-prerelease)This post announces Application Insights SDK version 0.10.0-prerelease. Key updates include support for ASP.NET web applications, Windows Phone 8.0/8.1, Windows Store 8.1 applications, and various logging frameworks (System.Diagnostics.Trace, Nlog, Log4Net). It introduces automatic server request monitoring, capturing response time, request rate, and failure rate. Diagnostic log capture is enhanced for logging frameworks and direct trace message emission. Client-side web telemetry for page views, user sessions, and browser versions is now available via JavaScript instrumentation. A preview custom telemetry API is introduced, supporting tracking of events, metrics, traces, and exceptions with custom properties and metrics. Dedicated NuGet packages for Windows Phone and Windows Store apps offer automatic collection of session starts, application crashes, and page views, along with automatic contextual properties.
  27. Monitoring your existing ApplicationsThis post introduces the Application Insights Status Monitor, an agent that can be installed on an IIS server to enable Application Insights monitoring for existing web applications without requiring code updates or redeployment. It details the installation process via the Web Platform Installer, the steps to select the local IIS application and associate it with an Application Insights resource, and the need to restart IIS for APM to take effect. The post also explains how to view performance telemetry (response time, request count, failed requests) in the Azure Portal and mentions the automatic enablement of the Application Insights profiler for capturing dependency data.
  28. Application Insights - instrumentation approaches for running testsThis post details instrumentation approaches for running tests with Application Insights, focusing on comparing different application versions. It outlines how to add a new application in Application Insights, send custom telemetry by logging events (e.g., adding items to a cart), and presents strategies for organizing data by version (e.g., two separate applications, version in event path, version as a parameter). It also covers viewing data in Application Insights and setting up dashboards by pinning specific data points for side-by-side comparison of application versions.
  29. Get Application Performance Counters of your choice during load runs with Visual Studio OnlineThis post details the integration of Visual Studio Online Cloud Load Testing with Application Insights to monitor application performance counters during load runs. It provides step-by-step instructions for configuring Application Insights, selecting performance counters (including recommended and custom ones), and correlating this data with user load for root cause analysis. The post also highlights the need for Visual Studio Update 3 RC for full functionality and provides links to relevant documentation for setup and troubleshooting.
  30. Application Insights tools for Visual Studio included in Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 RCThis post announces that Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 Release Candidate will provision an Application Insights resource directly in an Azure subscription, moving away from the previous method of creating Application Insights Applications within a Visual Studio Online account. It details the project types supported (ASP.NET Web Applications, Windows Store Applications, Windows Phone Applications) and provides instructions on how to revert to the previous behavior or enable Application Insights with the new update.
  31. Perform diagnostic search across your logs – Now Improved!Removes the requirement for Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) for diagnostic log search in Application Insights. Introduces the ability to enable log search by installing logging framework adapters (Trace Listener, Log4Net, NLog) via NuGet packages, sending log output directly to the Application Insights portal for querying.
  32. Announcing the New Application Insights Alerts PageIntroduced a new Alerts page user experience with back-end service improvements. Key features include immediate visibility of the latest observation, holistic view of prior trends across active alerts, and a details pane for selected observations. The page improvements offer trend and current assessments at a glance, a 2-week date range for historical perspective, a filter for quick information retrieval, and direct links to investigate further. It also allows for editing alert rules directly from the page and displays deployments and configuration changes on the timeline for impact analysis.
  33. Latest Microsoft Monitoring AgentIntroduced MMA agent version 7.1.11196.0. Includes an option to automatically restart IIS for .NET profiler registration. Modified APM data routing to send data only to Application Insights when also monitored by System Center. Updated instrumentation tool for Azure Cloud Services with security and reliability changes.
  34. Monitoring Custom Performance Counters in Application InsightsThis post details how to configure Application Insights to monitor custom performance counters. It outlines the steps to create a performance counter in Visual Studio Server Explorer, increment it from an application (demonstrated with VB.NET code), and then add the counter to the Application Insights configuration file using the format 'categorynamecountername'. It references MSDN documentation for further details.
  35. New agent for Application Insights availableThis post announces an updated version of the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) for Application Insights, improving performance counter collection frequency, log collection, and agent stability. It standardizes configuration through Visual Studio Application Insights Tools, allowing the configuration file to be part of the application deployment. Detailed steps are provided for updating the agent in various scenarios: applications on VMs/physical servers with project file updates, applications on VMs/physical servers without project file updates, and applications in Azure Cloud Services. The post also highlights the new agent version (7.1.11115.0) and provides troubleshooting steps.
  36. Get Application Performance data during load runs with Visual Studio OnlineThis post details configuring Visual Studio Online load testing to integrate with Application Insights for performance monitoring during load runs. It outlines steps to ensure cloud-based load testing is working, update Visual Studio, install and configure Application Insights on the target machine, and add Application Monitoring to load tests. The post explains how to select applications for monitoring and shows how performance counters (CPU, Memory, NetworkIO, DiskIO, PerformanceEventsPerSec, ExceptionsPerSecond) are correlated with user load over time. It also guides users to Application Insights for detailed root cause analysis.
  37. Case study: Application Performance Monitoring with Application InsightsThis post details how to set up availability monitors, performance monitoring, and dashboards for live sites using Application Insights. It provides specific guidance on configuring availability tests, including testing for strings and backend connections, and setting up alerts for dips in reliability. The post also explains how to use Application Insights for pre-production monitoring by adjusting configuration parameters like DisplayName, PerformanceThreshold, and Sensitivity to gain more detailed insights. A significant contribution is the detailed walkthrough of diagnosing a performance issue by analyzing response times, resource calls (specifically WCF services), and exceptions, leading to the identification of a cross-continent database connection as the root cause and the solution of hosting services in the same data cluster using affinity groups.
  38. Using Application Insights for Windows Phone 8.0 Direct3D C++ AppsThis post provides a workaround to integrate the Application Insights Telemetry SDK with Windows Phone 8.0 Direct3D C++ Apps, which are not natively supported by the NuGet package. It outlines steps for manually downloading the SDK, adding references to the project (including platform-specific handling for ARM and Win32), obtaining an Application Insights component ID, and initializing the SDK within the app's Initialize() method. It also describes how to view basic telemetry data and log custom events (Point Events, Timed Events, Page Views).
  39. Usage monitoring with Application Insights JavaScript SDK UpdateUpdated the Application Insights JavaScript SDK, changing the root object from `_da` to `appInsights` and renaming APIs to align with Windows Store/Phone SDKs (e.g., `logPageView`, `logEvent`). Modified `logEvent` to accept a single parameter combining path and event name. Introduced the ability to log properties and a metric for page views, with metric reporting available in the Pages Report.
  40. Implementing custom events in Application InsightsThis post details how to implement custom events in Application Insights for ASP.NET web forms. It provides step-by-step instructions for adding the necessary JavaScript to the HTML source, including initializing Application Insights with a site ID and calling `_daAnalytics.trackPage()`. It then demonstrates how to add custom event tracking using the `__da.trackEvent()` function, with examples for 'Happy' and 'Unhappy' button clicks, including event name, page URL, custom properties (e.g., 'Rating'), and numerical values (e.g., 'RatingValue'). The post also explains how to view these custom events and their details within the Application Insights Usage reports.
  41. Application Insights Microsoft Monitoring Agent setup and trouble shooting FAQThis post addresses common setup and troubleshooting issues for Application Insights, specifically focusing on the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA). It details installation problems related to account/instrumentation keys, locale support, and unsupported Azure environments. It also outlines reasons for not seeing data, such as insufficient waiting time, conflicts with other monitoring tools (TraceLog, Intellitrace, Azure profiling), incorrect time ranges, lack of application traffic, IIS application pool recycling issues, and asynchronous data delays. The post provides detailed steps for checking the Operations Manager event log and restarting the MMA services, along with a comprehensive list of relevant Event IDs for troubleshooting.
  42. Renaming, aliasing or coalescing applications in Application InsightsThis post details the process of renaming, aliasing, or coalescing applications in Application Insights. It explains that direct renaming is not supported and requires stopping monitoring, removing the old application, and then starting monitoring with the new name. It provides PowerShell commands for these operations and illustrates scenarios for differentiating applications across servers and for combining data from multiple servers into a single view. The post also mentions that the team is aware of the need for better disambiguation in the Applications view.
  43. Using a Visual Studio Web Test for availability monitoring in Application InsightsThis post details the steps to create a multi-step web test in Visual Studio and configure it within Application Insights for availability monitoring. It covers creating a new Application Insights application specifically for availability monitoring and adding a 'Multi Step Web Test' that points to the recorded web test file.
  44. Announcing Application Insights PreviewThis post announces the preview of Application Insights, detailing its three core services: availability monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM), and customer usage analytics. It highlights the integration of deployment markers within availability reports, allowing users to directly link availability issues to specific code deployments. The post also describes the types of data collected by APM (exceptions, memory usage, CPU, request rate, etc.) and customer usage analytics (OS, referral sources, pages usage, etc.), and how this data is made actionable through dynamic reports, email alerts, and customizable dashboards.
  45. Implementing Deployment Markers in Application InsightsThis post details the technical steps to enable and configure deployment markers in Application Insights. It explains how to modify project files to include `GenerateBuildInfoConfigFile` and `IncludeServerNameInBuildInfo` properties, and how to use an `AfterBuild` target to ensure the `BuildInfo.config` file is copied to the correct location (alongside `Web.config`). It also outlines the PowerShell command `Start-WebApplicationMonitoring` to enable monitoring and the subsequent creation of availability tests to visualize deployment markers alongside performance data.