Azure

StackState curated integration

This page describes StackState version 4.3.

The StackState 4.3 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.3 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.

Go to the documentation for the latest StackState release.

Overview

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services. This StackPack enables in-depth monitoring of the following Azure resource types:

The StackState Azure Agent is a collection of Azure functions that connect to the Azure APIs at a configured interval to collect information about available resources.
The StackState Azure function SendToStackState pushes retrieved data to StackState.
StackState translates incoming data into topology components and relations.
The StackState Azure plugin pulls available telemetry data per resource on demand from Azure, for example when a component is viewed in the StackState UI or when a health check is run on the telemetry stream.
StackState maps retrieved telemetry (metrics) onto the associated Azure components and relations.

Setup

Prerequisites

To set up the StackState Azure integration, you need to have:

PowerShell version >= 5.0 or Bash.
The Azure CLI.
A Resource Group where the StackState resources can be deployed. We recommend that you create a separate resource group for all the resources related to StackState.
An Azure Service Principal (SPN) for the StackState Azure Agent with the following permissions:
- Contributor role for the StackPack Resource Group to deploy and delete resources.
- Reader role for each of the subscriptions the StackPack instance will monitor.

Install StackPack

Install the Azure StackPack from the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations screen. You will need to provide the following parameters:

Azure instance name - the user-defined name of the Azure instance shown in configurations such as views.
Client Id - the client id of the Azure Service Principal.
Client Secret - the client secret used to authenticate the client.
Tenant Id - the Id of the Azure Tenant / Active Directory.

Deploy Azure Agent

To enable the Azure integration and begin collecting data from Azure, you will need to deploy the StackState Azure Agent to your Azure instance. The StackState Azure agent is a collection of Azure functions that connect to Azure REST API endpoints. You can deploy one or more StackState Azure Agents, each will collect data from resources related to the configured Reader roles in the Azure Service Principle.

Download the manual installation zip file. This is included in the Azure StackPack and can be accessed at the link provided in StackState after you install the Azure StackPack.
Make sure you have created a resource group in one of your subscriptions where the StackState Azure Agent can be deployed.
Run one of the install scripts below, specifying the Client Id and Client Secret - these are the appId and password from the Service Principal you created before installing the Azure StackPack.

./stackstate.monitor.sh \
    <Azure tenantId> \
    {{config.baseUrl}} \
    {{config.apiKey}} \
    <Azure subscriptionId> \
    <Azure clientId> \
    <Azure clientSecret> \
    <Azure resourceGroupName>

az login
az login
./stackstate.monitor.ps1 `
-tenantId <your tenantId> `
-stsApiUrl {{config.baseUrl} `
-stsApiKey {{config.apiKey}} `
-subscriptionId <azure subscriptionId> `
-servicePrincipalId <Client Id> `
-servicePrincipalSecret <Client Secret> `
-resourceGroupName <Resource GroupName to deploy to>

Status

You can check the status of the Azure integration in Azure resource group. Open the FunctionApp and check the available metrics or the full list of Functions from the left menu. The status of all functions should be Enabled.

Upgrade

When a new version of the Azure StackPack is available in your instance of StackState, you will be prompted to upgrade in the StackState UI on the page StackPacks > Integrations > Azure. For a quick overview of recent StackPack updates, check the StackPack versions shipped with each StackState release.

For considerations and instructions on upgrading a minor or patch release of a StackPack, see how to upgrade a StackPack.

To upgrade to a new major release of the Azure StackPack:

Completely remove the StackState Azure resources, either in Azure directly or using the provided deprovisioning script, and uninstall the current StackPack. For details see uninstall the Azure StackPack.
Install the new version from the page StackPacks > Integrations > Azure.
Install the new StackState Azure resources using the install script, see deploy the StackState Azure agent.

Integration details

Data retrieved

Events

The Azure integration does not retrieve any Events data.

Metrics

Metrics data is pulled on demand directly from Azure by the StackState Azure plugin, for example when a component is viewed in the StackState UI or when a health check is run on the telemetry stream. Retrieved metrics are mapped onto the associated topology component.

Topology

Each Azure integration retrieves topology data for resources associated with the associated Azure Service Principal.

Data

Description

Traces

The Azure integration does not retrieve any Traces data.

REST API endpoints

The Azure integration uses the following Azure REST API endpoints, scroll right for the SDK details:

Resource

Endpoint

SDK (Version)

StackState Azure functions

There are a number of methods in the TopologyDurableFunction class:

Function

Descrtipion

Azure views in StackState

When the Azure integration is enabled, a view will be created in StackState for each instance of the StackPack. Each view shows components filtered by the Azure instance_name tag and is named Azure_[instance_name].

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting steps can be found in the StackState support Knowledge base guide to troubleshoot the StackState Azure StackPack.

Uninstall

The Azure StackPack can be uninstalled by clicking the Uninstall button from the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations > Azure screen. This will remove all Azure specific configuration in StackState. You can also stop and delete the created resources (within the resource group specified when running the manual installation). They have been labeled with the tag StackState.

To do so, you can use the scripts in the manual installation zip file you downloaded when installing the StackState Azure agent. You can download this file again at anytime from the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations > Azure screen.

./stackstate.monitor.deprovisioning.sh \
    <your TENANT_ID> \
    {{config.baseUrl}}

./stackstate.monitor.deprovisioning.ps1 `
-tenantId <your TENANT_ID> `
-stsApiUrl {{config.baseUrl}}

Release notes

Azure StackPack v4.1.1 (2021-04-02)

Improvement: Enable auto grouping on generated views.
Improvement: Common bumped from 2.2.3 to 2.5.1
Improvement: Update documentation.
Improvement: StackState min version bumped to 4.3.0

Azure StackPack v4.0.1 (2020-08-18)

Feature: Introduced the Release notes pop up for customer

Azure StackPack v4.0.0 (2020-08-04)

Bugfix: Fix and make Component mapping function per instance to support multi-instance properly.
Improvement: Deprecated stackpack specific layers and introduced a new common layer structure.

Azure StackPack v3.0.1 (2020-06-10)

Improvement: Added urn:host based identifiers for Azure VM's

Azure StackPack v3.0.0 (2020-05-19)

Feature: Added multi-instance support for the Azure StackPack

StackState Docs