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Monitoring Azure Service Bus Queues

Info

The Nodinite Monitoring features for Azure Service Bus ensure you receive alerts for issues such as performance problems and message stockpiling. It also provides remote actions to resolve dead letter messages and more.

This page discusses monitoring the Azure Service Bus using Nodinite, including which aspects are monitored and the rules Nodinite employs to convert this information into valuable insights. Additionally, there are remote commands available as Remote Actions that can help you effectively manage any issues that may arise. More information about these remote actions can be found on the Managing Azure Service Bus page.

If you are interested in Monitoring Azure Service Bus Topics , click here.

The Nodinite Message Queueing Monitoring Agent automatically discovers your deployed Azure Service Bus resources in all accessible Resource Groups. When you deploy new Azure Service Bus resources, they get automatically included in the monitoring, and you can use them in Nodinite Monitor Views.
List of example Resources
Here's an example with Service Bus Resources in a Nodinite Monitor View.

Monitoring Features

Below is a list of Nodinite monitoring features for the Azure Service Bus:

  • Service Bus Queues
    • List dead-letter
    • Age verification
    • Count (warning/error)
    • The end-user can override global settings
  • Monitoring Azure Service Bus Topics
  • Resource groups
  • Service Bus Subscription
  • Automatic Discovery
    • Plug-and-play: No coding is required, and you need no changes to enable the Monitoring.
    • The Nodinite Azure agents make use of a combination of SDKs and the Azure Rest API and offer you an automatic discovery of your Azure Service Bus resources. Sharing access to any individual queue is very easy from within Nodinite.
  • State Evaluation - Ensure your Azure Service Bus resources maintain the intended run-time state and are not stockpiling messages. If Nodinite cannot check the state of your Azure Service Bus resources, there is a good chance that no one else can use them either.

State evaluation

Each monitored 'Service Bus Queue' is displayed in Monitor Views within Nodinite as one Resource with its currently evaluated state. If you have 42 deployed Azure Service Bus, then you will have 42 Resources in Nodinite with potentially different monitored evaluated states at any given moment.
Service Bus Resources
Here's an example of the 'Live overview' with different Monitoring states summarized in a pie chart.

The evaluated state may be reconfigured using the Expected State override setting on every Resource within Nodinite.

Azure Service Bus Queues

  • Azure Service Bus queues belong to the Nodinite 'Service Bus Queue' category:
    Service Bus Queue Category
    Here's an example of the category name for Azure Service Bus Queues.

  • The Application name is based on physical deployment paths. This pattern guarantees uniqueness:

    • subscription configuration name/resource group name/namespace name

Application Path Example
Here's an example of the Application naming pattern providing uniqueness.

Each monitored Service Bus Queue is a Resource and can have one of the following states at any given moment:

State Status Description Actions
Unavailable Resource not available Evaluation of the 'Azure ServiceBus queue' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems Review prerequisites
Error Error threshold is breached
  • Queue has too many or too old messages according to user-defined thresholds
  • Dead letter messages in queue
Edit thresholds
Purge
List messages
List dead-letter
Warning Warning threshold is breached
  • Queue has too many or too old messages according to user-defined thresholds
  • Dead letter messages in queue
Edit thresholds
Purge
List messages
List dead-letter
OK Within user-defined thresholds Queue has NO not too many or too old messages according to user-defined thresholds Edit thresholds
Queue details
List scheduled

Resource groups

For each subscription; Manage the list of named Resource groups to include in the monitoring. Each of these named 'Resource groups' is listed by the Resource group Category. Each such monitored configuration is presented as a Resource in Nodinite to help you make sure the Monitoring configuration is operational.
Resource group monitoring
Category 'Service Bus' selection as seen in a Monitor View.

Resources of the Category can be monitored from within Monitor Views:
Resource Group Not Available
Here's an example with an unavailable 'Resource group'.

This feature's background was that customers with deployed solutions by accident had business-impacting incidents due to people or automated deployments accidentally changed the name or even deleted the resource group.

State Status Description Actions
Unavailable Resource not available Evaluation of the 'Resource Group' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems Review prerequisites and/or Configuration
Warning Warning threshold is breached The Resource Group has no Service Bus Namespaces
OK Configuration is operational Resource group exists and is accessible Details

Azure Service Bus Subscription

Each unique namespace for the 'Service Bus' configurations are listed by the Category Service Bus. Each such monitored configuration is presented as a Resource in Nodinite to help you make sure the Monitoring is operational.
Service Bus Monitoring
Category 'Service Bus' selection as seen in a Monitor View.

Resources of the Category can be monitored from within Monitor Views:
Resource Not Available
Example with failing 'Subscription' for category 'Service Bus'.

This feature's background was that customers with deployed solutions by accident had business-impacting incidents due to people or automated deployments accidentally changed the name or even deleted the resource group.

State Status Description Actions
Unavailable Resource not available Evaluation of the 'Azure Subscription' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems Review prerequisites and/or Configuration
OK Configuration is operational Namespace found in Subscription that still exists and is accessible Details

Service Bus Subscription

There is one Resource of the Azure Subscription Category for each configuration entry.
Configuration monitoring
Category 'Azure Subscription' selection as seen in a Monitor View.

Resources of the Category can be monitored from within Monitor Views:
Resource is not available
Example with failing connection with configured 'Subscription' for category 'Service Bus Configuration'

This feature was developed because customers faced business-impacting incidents when deployed solutions were unintentionally altered. Changes, such as renaming or even deleting resource groups, could occur due to human error or automated deployments.

State Status Description Actions
Unavailable Resource not available Evaluation of the 'Azure Subscription Configuration' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems Review prerequisites and/or Configuration
Error There is a severe problem with the Subscription Subscription is disabled Details
OK Configuration is operational Subscription configuration exists and is accessible Details

Disabled Subscription
Here's an example of a Disabled Azure Subscription.


Alert history for Azure Service Bus

During root cause analysis or other purposes, it might be helpful to understand how often your Azure Service Bus problems happen. If your Monitor View allows it, you can search for historical state changes for the provided time span, either for all your Azure Service Bus or individually. This topic is further detailed within the generic instructions on how to Add or manage Monitor View page.


Search for alert history for all resources in the Monitor View.

Alert history for the selected app.

Frequently asked questions

Use the troubleshooting guide to find the FAQ and answers to known problems.

How do I grant my users access to Azure Service Bus Monitoring?

This is detailed in the User access to Azure Service Bus monitoring guide.

How do I enable monitoring of Azure Service Bus

To Monitor Azure Service Bus, the Message Queueing Monitoring Agent must be configured with the Enable monitoring for Service Bus checkbox checked (default is checked) further detailed in the 'User access to Azure ServiceBus monitoring' page.

The screenshot below is from the remote configuration form available from the Monitoring Agents administration page.
Enable Monitoring
Example with monitoring for Azure Service Bus resources enabled.


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