Windows Azure Diagnostics with SDK 1.6 for WebRoles

There appears to be a lot of conflicting and confused advice about configuring Diagnostics on Windows Azure.  The situation is not at all helped by Microsoft’s own site which, to paraphrase Morecambe and Wise, has all the right pieces of information, just not necessarily in the right order.

It doesn’t help that what used to work with earlier versions of the Azure SDK, no longer works with later versions.  So here I outline:

• The steps to get Diagnostics outputting correctly to Windows Azure Storage with SDK 1.6 for WebRoles (although I’d imagine it’s largely the same for WorkerRoles)
• Azure 1.5 ate my diagnostics – Another post where I update my Auto Packaging post to be compatible with SDK 1.6

Setting up Windows Azure Diagnostics for your WebRole with SDK 1.6

1. Configure Web.Config – required if you are using Trace statements

I use Log4Net for my general logging/tracing needs so don’t use Trace statements, thus the example shown in step 3, below, does not require you to complete this step.

However, if you are using Trace statements,  ie:

System.Diagnostics.Trace.TraceError("Error has occurred");

You’ll need to configure Web.config as described here

<system.diagnostics>
    <trace>
        <listeners>
            <add type="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics.DiagnosticMonitorTraceListener,
                Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics,
                Version=1.0.0.0,
                Culture=neutral,
                PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
                name="AzureDiagnostics">
                <filter type="" />
            </add>
        </listeners>
    </trace>
</system.diagnostics>

2. Initialise Diagnostics

As outlined here, you’ll need to ensure you add the Import element for the Diagnostics module in your ServiceDefinition.csdef file.  Here’s what mine looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ServiceDefinition name="HuzuSocial.Azure" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition">
    <WebRole name="HuzuSocial.App" vmsize="Small" >
        <Sites>
            <Site name="Web">
                <Bindings>
                    <Binding name="Endpoint1" endpointName="Endpoint1" />
                </Bindings>
            </Site>
        </Sites>
        <Endpoints>
            <InputEndpoint name="Endpoint1" protocol="http" port="80" />
        </Endpoints>
        <Imports>
            <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" />
        </Imports>
    </WebRole>
</ServiceDefinition>

Secondly you’ll need to add your Azure Storage Account details into your ServiceConfiguration.cscfg, mine looks like this (obviously replace with your account name and key):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ServiceConfiguration serviceName="HuzuSocial.Azure" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*">
        <Role name="HuzuSocial.App">
        <Instances count="2" />
        <ConfigurationSettings>
            <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=[youracountnamehere];AccountKey=[youraccountkeyhere]/>
        </ConfigurationSettings>
        <Certificates>
        </Certificates>
    </Role>
</ServiceConfiguration>

3. Override the OnStart method in WebRole.cs

In the root of your web project you should have a WebRole class.  You’ll need to override the OnStart method to correctly initialise the Diagnostics.  There is loads of different sample code out there, some of it highly dubious.  This is my configuration, and works well for me (I lifted this from a post out there somewhere, unfortunately I forgot to bookmark it and can no longer find it, so thankyou whoever you are)

public override bool OnStart()
{
    DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration diagConfig = DiagnosticMonitor.GetDefaultInitialConfiguration();

    var perfCounters = new List<string>
    {
        @"\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time",
        @"\Memory\Available Mbytes",
        @"\TCPv4\Connections Established",
        @"\ASP.NET Applications(__Total__)\Requests/Sec",
        @"\Network Interface(*)\Bytes Received/sec",
        @"\Network Interface(*)\Bytes Sent/sec"
    };

    // Add perf counters to configuration
    foreach (var counter in perfCounters)
    {
        var counterConfig = new PerformanceCounterConfiguration
                            {
                                CounterSpecifier = counter,
                                SampleRate = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5)
                            };

        diagConfig.PerformanceCounters.DataSources.Add(counterConfig);
    }

    diagConfig.PerformanceCounters.ScheduledTransferPeriod = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1.0);

    //Windows Event Logs
    diagConfig.WindowsEventLog.DataSources.Add("System!*");
    diagConfig.WindowsEventLog.DataSources.Add("Application!*");
    diagConfig.WindowsEventLog.ScheduledTransferPeriod = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1.0);
    diagConfig.WindowsEventLog.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter = LogLevel.Warning;

    //Azure Trace Logs
    diagConfig.Logs.ScheduledTransferPeriod = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1.0);
    diagConfig.Logs.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter = LogLevel.Warning;

    //Crash Dumps
    CrashDumps.EnableCollection(true);

    //IIS Logs
    diagConfig.Directories.ScheduledTransferPeriod = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1.0);

    DiagnosticMonitor.Start("Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString", diagConfig);

    return base.OnStart();
}

4. That’s it

When deployed to Azure your diagnostics should be successfully transferred to Azure Storage.  To analyse them in any meaningful way, I’d recommend Cerebrate Diagnostics manager, which gives you a nice dashboard.  See below

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