Introduction
Multi-Cloud Manager provides unified monitoring capabilities across Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Monitor virtual machines, containers, and other resources with centralized metrics collection, log analysis, and alerting.Monitoring Architecture
Azure Monitoring
Components:- Azure Monitor: Native platform metrics and monitoring
- Log Analytics Workspaces: Centralized log storage and analysis
- Data Collection Rules (DCR): Define what data to collect from resources
- Azure Monitor Agent (AMA): Modern agent for collecting telemetry
- Virtual Machines (Windows/Linux)
- Azure Container Instances (ACI)
- Custom applications with Application Insights
GCP Monitoring
Components:- Cloud Monitoring: Native GCP metrics and monitoring service
- Cloud Logging: Centralized logging platform
- Ops Agent: Unified monitoring and logging agent
- Alert Policies: Define conditions and notifications
- Compute Engine VMs
- Cloud Run services
- GKE clusters and containers
Key Features
Metrics Collection
VM Metrics
- CPU utilization and credits
- Memory usage and availability
- Network throughput
- Disk I/O operations
Container Metrics
- Request count and latencies
- Container instance count
- CPU and memory usage
- Network statistics
Log Management
- Real-time log streaming: View logs as they’re generated
- Custom queries: Use KQL (Azure) or LQL (GCP) for advanced filtering
- Log export: Download logs in CSV format for analysis
- Multi-source aggregation: Combine logs from different resources
Alerting
- Threshold-based alerts: Trigger on metric values
- Multi-condition alerts: Combine multiple conditions
- Custom alert policies: Define your own alert logic
- Integration ready: Connect to notification channels
Data Retention
Azure Log Analytics
| SKU | Default Retention | Maximum Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 7 days | 7 days |
| PerGB2018 | 30 days | 730 days (2 years) |
| PerNode | 31 days | 730 days |
GCP Cloud Logging
| Log Type | Default Retention | Maximum Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Admin Activity | 400 days | 400 days |
| System Events | 400 days | 400 days |
| Data Access | 30 days | 3650 days (10 years) |
| Access Transparency | 30 days | 390 days |
Getting Started
Set up Log Analytics (Azure)
Create a Log Analytics workspace to store metrics and logs from Azure resources.See Log Analytics for details.
Install Monitoring Agents
Deploy Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) or GCP Ops Agent on your VMs to collect advanced metrics.See Monitoring Agents for installation instructions.
Configure Data Collection
Define what metrics and logs to collect using Data Collection Rules (Azure) or agent configs (GCP).See Metrics Collection for configuration options.
Query and Analyze Logs
Use KQL or LQL to query logs and gain insights into your resources.See Log Management for query examples.
Best Practices
Agent Deployment
- Use Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) instead of legacy MMA
- Deploy Ops Agent on all GCP Compute Engine instances
- Configure agents with appropriate permissions
- Monitor agent health and connectivity
Cost Optimization
- Set appropriate sampling intervals (60-300 seconds recommended)
- Filter logs to capture only necessary severity levels
- Use data retention policies to control storage costs
- Archive old logs to cheaper storage tiers
Query Performance
- Limit time ranges to the minimum needed
- Use specific filters to reduce data scanned
- Avoid wildcard searches in production queries
- Cache frequently-used query results
Next Steps
Metrics Collection
Learn about available metrics and how to collect them
Log Management
Query and analyze logs with KQL and LQL
Log Analytics
Set up Azure Log Analytics workspaces
Monitoring Agents
Install and configure monitoring agents