# Enable metrics Monitoring your application's performance is crucial for maintaining its reliability and efficiency. F5 NGINXaaS for Azure (NGINXaaS) seamlessly integrates with Azure Monitor, allowing you to collect, correlate, and analyze metrics for a thorough understanding of your application's health and behavior. Refer to the [Azure monitor overview](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/overview) documentation from Microsoft to learn more about Azure Monitor. ## Prerequisites - A system assigned managed identity. **Note:** The system-assigned managed identity does not need any role assignments to enable the metrics functionality described in this section. ## Collection Azure Monitor will collects metrics from the NGINXaaS deployment automatically if the prerequisites are met. No configuration is required. ## Exporting You can export Azure Monitor metrics to other destinations like Log Analytics workspace, Azure Storage Account, Azure Event Hubs or [Azure Monitor partner solutions](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/partner-solutions/partners#observability-partners) using the diagnostic settings. For more information, see the [Metrics diagnostic settings](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/diagnostic-settings) documentation from Microsoft. To configure diagnostic settings for a service, see [Create diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/create-diagnostic-settings). You can export metrics by selecting the `AllMetrics` category in diagnostic settings. **Note:** Not all metrics are exportable via diagnostic settings, for a list of exportable metrics, see [NGINXaaS exportable metrics](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/reference/supported-metrics/nginx-nginxplus-nginxdeployments-metrics). ## Cost and retention Azure Monitor platform metrics are ingested and stored free of charge, with a standard retention period of 93 days. Adding alerts, querying Azure Monitor using REST API or exporting metrics using Azure Monitor's diagnostic settings would incurs costs. For detailed pricing, you can refer to the [Azure Monitor pricing page](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/monitor/). ## Review metrics Once you have enabled monitoring, you can view the metrics using the Azure portal or the Azure Monitor API. **Note:** NGINX Agent periodically gathers connection and request statistics using an internal HTTP request. An Azure service health probe checks for status using a TCP connection for each listen port in the NGINX configuration, incrementing the connection count for each port. This contributes to minimal traffic and should not affect these metrics significantly, but you might see an unexpected number of connections and requests. **Note:** If some of your deployment's metrics are intermittently missing in Azure monitor, it may indicate that the underlying resources for your deployment are being exhausted. Monitor the `nginxaas.capacity.percentage` metric to see the deployment's resource utilization. If it's nearing 100%, consider increasing the deployment's NCU capacity. See the [Scaling Guidance](/nginxaas-azure/quickstart/scaling.md) documentation for more information. ### View metrics with Azure Monitor metrics explorer Access the [Microsoft Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com) 1. Go to your NGINXaaS for Azure deployment. 2. In the navigation pane under **Monitoring**, select the **Metrics** section to access the Azure Monitor metrics explorer for your NGINXaaS deployment. Refer to the [Azure Monitor metrics explorer](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/metrics-getting-started) documentation from Microsoft to learn how you can create queries. **Note:** Many of NGINX Plus's advanced statistics need to be enabled in the "nginx.conf" file before they will appear in the metrics explorer, for example "plus.http.request.bytes_*". Refer to [Gathering Data to Appear in Statistics](https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/monitoring/live-activity-monitoring/#gathering-data-to-appear-in-statistics) to learn more. ### Retrieve metrics through Azure Monitor API This section shows you how to effectively discover, gather and analyze NGINXaaS metrics through the Azure Monitor REST API. **Note:** Refer to [Authenticate Azure Monitor requests](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/rest-api-walkthrough?tabs=portal#authenticate-azure-monitor-requests) for instructions on authenticating your API requests against the Azure Monitor API endpoint. 1. **Retrieve metric definitions:** Metrics definitions give you insights into the various metrics available for NGINXaaS within a namespace and what they represent. The following `curl` example shows how to retrieve all metrics definitions within the `nginx connections statistics` namespace for your NGINXaaS deployment: ```shell curl --request GET --header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" "https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/12345678-abcd-98765432-abcdef012345/resourceGroups/my-nginx-rg/providers/NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments/my-nginx-dep/providers/microsoft.insights/metricDefinitions?api-version=2024-02-01" ``` The following JSON shows an example response body: ```json { "value": [ ... { "id": "/subscriptions/12345678-abcd-98765432-abcdef012345/resourceGroups/my-nginx-rg/providers/NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments/my-nginx-dep/providers/microsoft.insights/metricdefinitions/Nginx Connections Statistics/nginx.conn.current", "resourceId": "/subscriptions/12345678-abcd-98765432-abcdef012345/resourceGroups/my-nginx-rg/providers/NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments/my-nginx-deployment", "namespace": "NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments", "category":"nginx connections statistics", "name": { "value": "nginx.conn.current", "localizedValue": "Current connections" }, ... } ... ] } ``` 2. **Metric values:** You can obtain the actual metric values which represent real-time or historical data points that tell you how your NGINXaaS is performing. The following `curl` example shows how to retrieve the value of metric `nginx.conn.current` over a 10-minute time window averaged over 5 minute intervals: ```shell curl --request GET --header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" "https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/12345678-abcd-98765432-abcdef012345/resourceGroups/my-nginx-rg/providers/NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments/my-nginx-dep/providers/microsoft.insights/metrics?metricnames=nginx.conn.current×pan=2025-03-27T20:00:00Z/2025-03-27T20:10:00Z&aggregation=Average&interval=PT5M&api-version=2024-02-01" ``` The following JSON shows an example response body: ```json { "cost": 9, "timespan": "2025-03-27T20:00:00Z/2025-03-27T20:10:00Z", "interval": "PT5M", "value": [ { "id": "/subscriptions/12345678-abcd-98765432-abcdef012345/resourceGroups/my-nginx-rg/providers/NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments/my-nginx-dep/providers/Microsoft.Insights/metrics/nginx.conn.current", "type": "Microsoft.Insights/metrics", "name": { "value": "nginx.conn.current", "localizedValue": "Current connections" }, "unit": "Count", "timeseries": [ { "metadatavalues": [], "data": [ { "timeStamp": "2025-03-27T20:00:00Z", "average": 4 }, { "timeStamp": "2025-03-27T20:05:00Z", "average": 4 } ] } ], "errorCode": "Success" } ], "namespace": "NGINX.NGINXPLUS/nginxDeployments", "resourceregion": "eastus2" } ``` **Note:** Refer to the [Metrics Catalog](/nginxaas-azure/monitoring/metrics-catalog.md) for a listing of available namespaces and metrics.