The migration of IT landscapes to cloud environments is common today. However, the question often remains how to monitor these newly created infrastructures and react to failures. For traditional infrastructure, monitoring tools such as Icinga are used. These tools are often deployed using configuration management methods, such as Ansible or Puppet.

In cloud environments, this is somewhat different. On the one hand, virtual machines are certainly used here, where these methods would be applicable. On the other hand, modern cloud environments also thrive on abstracting away from the virtual machine and offering services, for example as SaaS, in a decoupled manner. But how does one monitor such services?

Manual configuration of an Icinga2 monitoring system is not advisable, as these cloud environments, in particular, are characterized by high dynamism. The risk of not monitoring a service that was quickly added but later becomes important is high.

The Icinga2 and IcingaWeb2 project responded to these requirements for dynamic monitoring environments some time ago with the Director plugin. The Director plugin, using so-called importer modules, is capable of dynamically reading resources contained in various environments, such as “VMware VSphere” or “Amazon AWS“. These can then be automatically integrated into classic Icinga monitoring via rules.

Sponsored by DPD Deutschland GmbH, credativ GmbH is developing an extension module for the IcingaWeb2 Director, which allows dynamic integration of resources from the “Microsoft Azure Cloud“. This module queries the Microsoft Azure REST API and returns various resource types, which can then be automatically added to your monitoring via the Director. The module is already in use by our customers and will be further developed according to demand.

Ten resource types are already supported

Currently, the Azure Importer Module supports the following resource types:

Virtual Machines
Virtual Disks
Network Interfaces for Virtual Machines
Load Balancers
Application Gateways
Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL^® servers (SaaS)
Express Route Circuits
Authorizations for Express Route Circuits
Resource Groups
Subscriptions

Further resource types can be easily implemented through its modular, object-oriented programming. The Azure Importer Module for Icinga Web2 Director is implemented in PHP, like Icinga Web2. Its development is based on the language features available in PHP 7. The module has no dependencies on other modules – apart from Icinga Web2 and the Director module, obviously. We plan to present a sample configuration in a later blog post here.

The module is now available as an open source solution

The Azure Importer Module is available under the MIT license as an open source project on Github.
The respective tested versions are available here for download as a release.

The import module for the Microsoft Azure Cloud is being expanded for current projects. The resource types implemented so far are ready for use.

Do you require support with monitoring?

If you require support or enhancements for this module, please contact us. Existing customers of credativ GmbH can quickly and easily commission this within the framework of an existing service and support contract. For other inquiries, please speak with our sales team. We also gladly support you with the setup, operation, or expansion of your monitoring solutions – not exclusively, but also in the cloud.

Key Takeaways

The migration of IT landscapes to cloud environments requires effective monitoring.
The Icinga Director plugin enables the automatic integration of resources from various cloud environments.
credativ GmbH is developing an Azure Importer Module for IcingaWeb2 that dynamically registers Microsoft Azure resources.
The module already supports ten different resource types and is available as open source under the MIT license.
Existing customers of credativ GmbH can quickly request assistance for monitoring support.

The free Linux distribution Debian is now available as a supported distribution in the Azure Marketplace. In collaboration with Microsoft, credativ will also take over the ongoing maintenance of the Debian images.

The Debian images created by credativ are now available for Debian 8 (Jessie) and Debian 7 (Wheezy).

Further information is available on Microsoft’s Azure Blog.

We would like to thank all colleagues involved from credativ’s Debian team, as well as Microsoft and the Debian Project, for the smooth and professional collaboration.

credativ’s Open Source Support Center provides comprehensive support for Debian GNU/Linux and numerous open source projects.

In addition, if required, we provide operational support or take over full operations for Linux-based operating environments and your entire open source stack. Our Operation-Services are delivered by credativ’s Open Source Support Center and fully cover all day-to-day operational tasks. Operations can be carried out within a mixed team of your staff and ours, or be fully taken over by credativ.

The article was originally written by Michael Amstadt.