Azure Redis Monitoring Tool

Azure Redis Cache is based on the popular open source Redis cache. It gives you access to a secure, dedicated Redis cache, managed by Microsoft and accessible from any application within Azure. Azure Redis Cache is available in a variety of tiers, (i.e. Basic, Standard, Premium), offering an expanded set of throughput and consistent low-latency data access to power fast, scalable Azure applications.

What You Can Monitor

Opsview Monitor's Azure Redis monitoring tool contains all of the latest service checks to monitor your Redis environment. Opsview helps keep track of performance metrics such as Cache Read, which shows the amount of data read from cache. Cache issues can directly affect server side network bandwidth limits used by this cache.

Service Checks

Service Check Name	Description	Default Thresholds (Warning, Critical)	UOM
Azure - Redis - Cache Bytes	The number of cache read and write bytes per second [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	B/s
Azure - Redis - Cache Requests	The number of cache hits and misses [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	N/A
Azure - Redis - Commands	The number of commands processed [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	N/A
Azure - Redis - Connected Clients	The maximum number of connected clients [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	N/A
Azure - Redis - CPU Usage	The CPU usage as a percentage [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	percent_processor_time=70,90	%
Azure - Redis - Keys	The number of keys [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	N/A
Azure - Redis - Memory Usage	The memory usage as a percentage [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	used_memory_percentage=70,90	%
Azure - Redis - Memory Used	The memory allocated to Redis (RSS) and used by Redis [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	B
Azure - Redis - Memory Used Ratio	The ratio of memory allocated to Redis to memory being used by Redis [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	N/A	N/A
Azure - Redis - Server Load	The maximum percentage load on the server [Default Timespan = 5mins, Default Check Interval = 5mins]	server_load=70,90	%

NOTE: The "Default Timespan" given for these Service Checks refers to the time period we use when retrieving metrics from Azure.

NOTE: See details about Nagios thresholds here.

Azure Redis Monitoring Tool Prerequisites

The monitoring plugin for this Opspack has been tested with Python 2.7. In order for the Opspack to run, you will need to have some Python packages installed by running the pip python package tool.

If a cryptography error occurs when trying to install the Azure packages, you can run the commands which should fix the problem.

Debian and Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev python-pip

CentOS and RHEL

sudo yum install gcc libffi-devel python-devel openssl-devel python-pip

Common

When python-pip is installed, you can then run:

sudo pip install --upgrade pip==9.0.2
sudo pip install --upgrade setuptools
sudo pip install --upgrade requests
sudo pip install nagiosplugin
sudo pip install azure
sudo pip install azure-monitor

Setup Azure for Monitoring

To monitor you Azure environment, you need to configure it for monitoring

This requires Administrator access on Azure. You need to retrieve the following credentials:

Subscription ID
Tenant/Directory ID
Client/Application ID
Secret Key

Step 1: Find Subscription ID

The Subscription ID can be found in the Subscriptions section under the All services section from the Azure dashboard

Step 2 : Find the Tenant/Directory ID

The Tenant/Directory ID can be found in the Azure Active Directory under the Properties section from the Azure dashboard

Step 3: Find the Client/Application ID for your application

You need to create and register your application if you haven't already. Use the following documentation from Microsoft: Create an Azure Active Directory application

The Client/Application ID can be found in Azure Active Directory under the App registrations section from the Azure dashboard

Step 4: Generate the Secret Key for your application

You will need to create a Secret Key for your application, once this has been created its value will be hidden so save the value during creation

To create the Secret Key, select your application from the list, select the Settings within your application and then select the Keys option

There you can create a new key by adding the description and expiration period and the value will be generated

Step 5: Provide access to the subscription you wish to monitor

Navigate to the Subscriptions section and select the Subscription you selected before

In the Subscription to be monitored, click Access Control (IAM)

Then click the Add button, select Monitoring Contributor and select the application

If you are running more than one subscription these steps will need to be done for each one you wish to monitor

Setup and Configuration

Step 1: Add the Host Template

To configure and utilize this Opspack, you simply need to add the 'Cloud - Azure - Redis' Opspack to your Opsview Monitor system.

For more information, refer to Opsview Knowledge Center - Adding Host Templates to Hosts.

Step 2: Add and configure variables required for this host

Add 'AZURE_CREDENTIALS' to the host and set the Resource Group as its variable value, then override the Subscription ID, Client ID, Secret Key and Tenant ID to match the values retrieved earlier.