Episode 763
Peter Laudati on What the Hack
Cloud Solution Architect Peter Laudati is the co-creator of What-the-Hack. This workshop style teaches technology by allowing students to work through challenges, rather than providing step-by-step instructions. He discusses the history and goals of the program.
Links:
https://aka.ms/wth
"Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner was such a hit that it inspired a blog, a podcast, and a sequel, which they chose to name "SuperFreakonomics."
Like the original book, "SuperFreakonomics" explores unusual questions and odd correlations and applies the logic of an economist to suggest possible answers.
Some of the topics have little to do with economics.
They discuss the infamous 1964 New York Times story that reported a woman murdered in front of thirty-eight witnesses, none of whom called the police. They show that the passive bystander report was inaccurate and suggest reasons why the police might spread this story.
The authors describe a company in Washington state and its unique approaches to tackling the problems of global warming and devastating hurricanes. One solution involves spraying sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere would deflect sunlight enough to cool the Earth, as it did after some large volcanic eruptions.
They argue that it is safer to drive drunk than to walk drunk (at least for the drunk person), as walking drunk results in fewer deaths per mile.
They interview prostitutes and explore the financial numbers and the risks of the profession. According to the book's data, a Chicago police officer is more likely to have sex with a prostitute than arrest her.
They devote a chapter to the study of altruism, trying to determine if humans are altruistic by nature. Each study presented seems to contradict the one before suggesting alternately that people act in their own best interest and that they want to help others when they are able. Because economics is mostly about how people respond to incentives (monetary and otherwise), this chapter sought the incentive that motivated people in each study.
Mostly, the book has fun with data and stories about people attacking problems by looking at them in unique ways.
It is not a scholarly treatise, and its conclusions are not dogmatic. But it is an entertaining book that will challenge conventional wisdom and spark thinking and conversation.
Most scientists who study the topic agree that Earth's climate is changing and that human activity significantly impacts the direction and rate of that change.
Bill Gates's 2021 book "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster" addresses this issue. Gates sets the ambitious goal of eliminating greenhouse gases by 2050. This goal means more than just stopping emissions but also includes cleaning up the pollutants already released into the atmosphere.
In Gates's view, much of the solution lies in technological advances, such as creating more efficient machinery for meeting our needs, cleaning up the carbon in the air, or improving the manufacturing processes of our products. We should invest in alternatives to carbon-based fuels, such as coal, used to generate electricity. Biofuels, nuclear power, wind power, and solar power are all viable alternatives with varying short-term costs.
He also recommends policy changes: for example, more government investment in clean energy research and development. Governments can set regulations and incentives and be purchasers of green technologies.
The key is a combination of technologies, policies, and market structure. Gates writes, "...markets, policy, and technology have to work in complementary ways."
The behavioral change will come about either through economic pressure or regulation. Many solutions today have a "Green Tax" - the relative cost of implementing a financial solution relative to the current solution. Often that tax/cost is 2-3 times as high as what we are doing now, which is a significant disincentive for consumers or companies to go green. Governments can enact legislation, but legislation that increases short-term monetary cost is never popular and is challenging to pass.
I like that Gates explained the causes of climate change in clear language. This is not a scientific paper, but an education for the common man.
I like that Gates did not hide his financial interest in the technologies he advocates. He divested himself of fossil fuel investments and is now financially supporting alternative fuels.
I like that Gates acknowledges the complexity of the issue. When considering a product's carbon emissions, we must consider the entire lifecycle of the product. Electric cars and solar panels emit far less carbon into the atmosphere, but they still use carbon in their manufacturing process, which needs to be part of the equation.
Legislation is also tricky when multiple countries are involved. Does it help the world if the United States reduces emissions but other countries do not? And is it fair to penalize poorer, less-developed countries that have not yet reaped the benefits of the industrial revolution that led to many of these pollutants?
Most of the proposed solutions in this book are directed at governments and corporations. But there are ways that individuals can have an impact on climate change. By writing and calling their government representatives and demanding action, we can help influence their legislative priorities. By purchasing green products, such as an energy-efficient thermostat or an electric car, we can reduce emissions and move the market to encourage more investment in green products. By reducing our meat and dairy consumption, we can reduce the demand for methane-producing cattle.
Ultimately, it is in our self-interest to address these issues now before they become a disaster.
Richard Ford has written for decades about his alter ego Frank Bascombe. He told Bascombe's story in "The Sportswriter, "Independence Day," and "The Lay of the Land." Each story follows a similar structure. Ford eschews a formal plot for a stream-of-consciousness narrative that follows Frank through a holiday weekend, often narrating a series of loosely-connected events and culminating in a chaos-filled climax.
In "Let Me Be Frank With You," Ford finally acknowledges this looseness. He presents the book as four short stories connected only by the central character - Frank Bascombe.
Here is a summary of each story.
Frank visits the owner of his former house after a devastating storm destroyed the domicile. Although he sold the house years ago, the new owner makes him feel guilty about transferring this financial loss.
A woman knocks on Frank's door and reveals a dark secret about his house and its past.
Frank visits his ex-wife, who was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's and moved into an elderly home. Their relationship is civil, but she lets him know how his inadequacies.
Frank reluctantly visits an old acquaintance who is now dying. The friend confesses a betrayal committed years earlier.
Like the previous Bascombe novels, this one takes place around a holiday. In this case, the holiday is Christmas; but little is made of it until the final story.
Frank is 68 years old, retired, and financially secure. He has been remarried for years and has a cordial relationship with his ex-wife. His children have moved away and are reasonably successful. Despite all these successes, he feels the angst of everyday life and pushes down his regrets about the past. In each story, someone reveals a truth, and Frank must grapple with something beyond his control.
As always, Ford allows us to feel for Bascombe by inviting us inside his mind. He appears natural to the reader because his thoughts are reasonable, if not always rational.
The entertaining and thoughtful stories present a plausible progression of Frank's character as he ages.
The writings of economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner read more like a take on sociology than an academic treatise on economics. Due to their unconventional approach, the authors chose the title "Freakonomics" for their book, indicating that it draws from the field of economics but often strays from that discipline or tackles questions that other economists do not. Levitt is an economist at the prestigious University of Chicago. Dubner is a journalist who met Levitt when he wrote an article about him for the New York Times Magazine. Presumably, the ideas in "Freakonomics" are Levitt's, while Dubner is responsible for the wordsmithing. Regardless, it is an entertaining and informative read.
The book seeks to challenge conventional wisdom on a range of topics. It begins by asking seemingly nonsensical questions, such as "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" and "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?"
They answer these questions with numbers.
Schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers each have an incentive to cheat under certain circumstances. By studying data, the authors were able to identify those who most likely cheated, resulting in the firing of some Chicago teachers and the cancellation of at least one wrestling tournament. Beyond their analysis, they speculated why the cheating might occur. Economics is all about how people respond to incentives. Sometimes those incentives are monetary (schoolteachers may fudge students' standardized test results because they are graded on how well students perform on those tests, so higher test scores lead to better performance reviews); but some incentives are non-monetary. A sumo wrestler requires eight wins to remain at the sport's top level. A favored wrestler may throw a fight to a 7-win wrestler in the season's final match if he can expect his opponent to return the favor the following season.
Levitt and Dubner are quick to point out that their findings do not take morality into account. For example, when violent crime fell during the 1990s, many economists cited factors like increased police protection or the threat of the death penalty, or harsher prison sentences as primary causes of the decline. But the authors point out that the data do not support these correlations. Instead, they suggest that legalizing abortions following the 1973 landmark Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court Case was the most significant factor in reducing violent crime. They reasoned that low-income single teenage mothers were the most likely to take advantage of legalized abortions. Before 1973, children born to these mothers suffered numerous disadvantages, from growing up in high-crime areas to having a mother who did not want a child. A disproportionate number of these children eventually turned to a life of crime. Legal abortions prevented the births of many of these potential criminals in the 1970s, which led to lower crime rates in the 1990s. In contrast, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu banned abortions in his country and encouraged women to have many babies to boost the country's population and influence. Years later, the revolution that toppled Ceaușescu's regime and executed him was largely led by the rebellious children born due to his policies.
Of course, this completely ignores the moral argument about abortions, one of America's most polarizing topics today. Still, this book does not take a stand on the ethical debate. It simply presents the numbers, recognizes correlations, and postulates reasons why these correlations exist.
Other conclusions that may surprise people are a swimming pool in a home is more dangerous than a gun in a home, and the risk of death is higher for a Chicago crack dealer than for an inmate on death row in Texas - far higher!
Other economists and journalists have picked apart many of the findings in Levitt's studies and pointed out flaws in his interpretations. But the book's goal is not to solve the world's problems. It is to help us approach those problems from a new angle.
"Freakonomics" does not provide a lot of answers. But it raised some interesting questions and inspired me to look at the world differently.
This year, many friends and even more acquaintances suddenly found themselves out of work. My employer laid off a lot of people in the past nine months (they called it "Reduction in Force" or "RIF"). I survived these layoffs, but I have been unemployed and know how stressful it can be - especially if you are supporting a family.
Here is some advice for those of you seeking work and those of you still employed.
Make a list of the things at which you excel. What have you done to demonstrate this excellence? Write down the successful projects you worked on and how you contributed to that success.
It is sometimes difficult to see a bright spot when you just lost your job, but this is an excellent opportunity to find the job you really want. You are more likely to find that job if you know what it is. Think about your dream job. Articulate what you will do and write that down. You may have multiple dream jobs, and that is okay, but you will be more successful if you are more focused.
Take a look at your resume. Of course, you will add your most recent job. But you should also look back at your descriptions of previous jobs. Can you improve the wording? Can you remove irrelevant content? If you have no desire to be a COBOL programmer, it may be time to strike that line from your resume. If you have a lot of professional experience, it may be time to remove the part-time McDonald's job you had in college.
This is also an excellent time to update your cover letter to potential employers. State your goals and why you are a good hire.
Ask someone to review these for you.
It is okay to have multiple versions of both your resume and your cover letter.
Do not be afraid to let others know you are looking. They have contacts who do not know you, and they can help you expand your search. Many people want to help but cannot unless they know you need help. Ask. Be specific about the kind of help you are seeking. See the section below for some ideas.
If, like me, you are not directly affected by the layoffs, you may be able to help. This is true even if you are not a hiring manager and do not know anyone who is hiring.
Here are some ways you can help.
If you have worked with someone before, take the time to write about your experience. Be specific about the work you performed together, their contributions, and their strengths. LinkedIn is a great place to post this because it is public, and many potential employees read these. Note that this is only appropriate if you have direct knowledge of a person. Your endorsement affects your reputation.s
Do NOT simply click the Endorsement buttons on LinkedIn. Those are useless.
Many of you have a broad network with many Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, Twitter followers, and other social media contacts. A retweet or a repost of a friend's "Open to Work" message can get that message in front of new people, increasing the chances of a match.
If you have experience hiring or looking for work, you likely have experience with resumes. You can use this knowledge to review your friend's resume. I have seen many bad resumes created by qualified people. A poorly-written resume decreases chances with an employer.
Keep a list of those you know who are looking for work, their skills, and the type of position they seek. Refer to this list when you learn of a job opening. Employers appreciate it when you send someone with the skills they are seeking.
As I mentioned above, I have experienced the frustration of prolonged unemployment. Years ago, I lost my job a month after my first son was born and a year after I bought my first house. The experience seemed devastating at the time, but I took the opportunity to change career paths.
I survived my company's recent layoffs, leaving me only with survivor's guilt.
I was able to help myself then, and I have been able to help others recently. You can too!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can potentially revolutionize almost every aspect of our lives. We can use AI to develop self-driving cars, diagnose medical disorders, and better predict natural disasters. But these advances are not without risks. We need to consider the ethics of the systems we create. This becomes more true as these systems become more advanced and more powerful. The concept of "Responsible AI" seeks to address our concerns.
Responsible AI refers to designing, developing, and deploying artificial intelligence systems that prioritize ethical considerations and the well-being of users and society. It involves an ongoing commitment to address potential risks and ensure we use AI technologies in ways that align with societal values.
Microsoft emphasizes the following principles of Responsible AI:
The system should strive to treat everyone fairly. Consider your system's impact on people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities. Are we discriminating against some groups? For example, are we more likely to return a higher credit risk simply because someone is a woman? We can address this by removing the bias from our input data. Biased input will create a biased model.
An AI system should be reasonably accurate and should not present undue risks. Consider the possible errors in your output, the likelihood of those errors, and the impact if those errors should occur. Validate your data and your results. Some errors are inconvenient; others can be catastrophic. For example, if a self-driving car turns at the wrong time, it could result in the death of a pedestrian.
All Machine Learning Models use data as input, and some of that data may be private. Private data could be corporate information, such as financial reports, or personal information, such as names and addresses. In both cases, ensuring that you properly secure confidential data is essential. As you collect data, communicate how you will use it, and allow users to opt out of providing some information. Recognize what parts of your data are private and keep them secure using encryption, access restrictions, and auditing tools.
When building applications on top of AI, consider accessibility.
Reveal the data and algorithms on which you base your model. People have a right to know how your system came to the conclusions it did.
When designing an AI system, it is tempting to defer decisions to the system, deflecting responsibility away from ourselves. But those who develop an AI system are responsible for the decisions produced by that system.
Consider who is responsible for decisions based on your AI system.
IBM has its take on this topic, which they refer to as Explainable AI. Explainable AI consists of the following principles:
I confess that I do not understand many aspects of AI. But we have a duty to think responsibly when we deploy any system built on AI models. This article summarizes some of those responsibilities.
Episode 762
Ashley Janelle on User ExperienceAshley Janelle on User Experience
Ashley Janelle is a User Experience (UX) Designer at Amazon. She discusses the principles of UX, how UX differs from UI, and how to get started in the UX field.
Minda Harts saw a gap in the sea of self-help books. None were directed at or written by working black women. She decided to write her own. "The Memo" is Harts's advice for professional women of color.
Ms. Harts's style is informal and conversational. As a result, her writing is less concise than you may be used to in a professional book. She peppers her writing with references to hip-hop lyrics, video games, and popular TV shows and movies. I am neither a gamer nor an avid TV watcher, but I enjoy good music and movies. So some of the references were unfamiliar to me. But her points remain solid.
I like the fact that she neither denies the existence of systemic racism nor uses it as an excuse to fail. Instead, her message is: Here are obstacles women of color face in today's workforce; here are some strategies to succeed.
The target audience is black women, and Hart spends much of the text recounting the racism and microaggressions she encountered in her career. But she also provides career advice that is useful to us all.
Network. Attend social events outside work, with your co-workers, and within your industry. A good network opens doors, even if you find it uncomfortable talking with strangers.
Advocate for yourself. Do not be afraid to call attention to your excellent work.
Negotiate your salary. Learn your position's going rate and ask what you are worth.
Invest in your education. Make yourself valuable to your current employer or your next employer.
One chapter is directed toward white people - especially white women. Harts laments that so many speak of "women" without including women of color who have been left behind by the gains in recent years. She calls on white women to use their voices to advance and seek representation for all women.
Although I am not the target audience, I found much valuable advice within "The Memo."
I came to the Lighthouse Art Space in Chicago's Gold Coast to see Lenny White. I have been a fan of White's music since his days with the influential electric jazz fusion band Return to Forever. But tonight, there was no electric jazz and no fusion, and White - although excellent - was not the most impressive musician on the stage. Buster Williams on contrabass and pianist Cyrus Chestnut joined drummer White in a group that billed itself as "The Legendary Trio." Together, they filled the sold-out room with acoustic jazz for nearly two hours.
This was my first visit to Lighthouse - a venue known for its Immersive Van Gogh exhibit - a multimedia tribute to the artist. Tonight's set opened with thirty minutes of the "Immersive Mozart" exhibit, in which animated images floated across the four walls, accompanied by the composer's music.
When the Trio took the stage, the projections changed to static images of paintings by Frida Kala, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, and others. White joked that they were performing inside a painting, playing a soundtrack for the artwork.
White and Williams were excellent, but Cyrus Chestnut stole the show. His mastery of the keyboards was nothing short of phenomenal. Chestnut carried the melody while the other two supported with their rhythm. They opened with a Jimmy Van Heusen ballad - "It Could Happen to You," and followed with "Faith Amongst the Unknown" - a haunting Chestnut original. They played bouncing blues and melancholy jazz and even their own arrangement of a Chopin nocturne.
I was thrilled to attend a meet-and-greet following the show, where I expressed my appreciation for the evening's performance. I discovered the music of Return to Forever during my university days, but I never saw them in concert. After this week, I have seen all the members (White, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al Dimeola, and the late keyboardist Chick Corea) perform live.
It was an evening to remember.
Artificial Intelligence receives a lot of coverage in the scientific and popular press these days. You may have heard terms like "Machine Learning," "Deep Learning," "Transfer Learning," and "Generative AI" and wonder what they mean and what is the difference between each of them. Although not identical, all these concepts are related.
This article will discuss these terms, their definitions, and their relation.
Artificial Intelligence ("AI") is a broad term for getting computers to think like humans. This concept is at the top of all the others.
Machine Learning ("ML") is a subset of Artificial Intelligence that describes algorithms that examine a set of data, group that data, and create a model that allows the computer to make predictions based on that model. It uses mathematics and statics in its work.
There are two basic types of Machine Learning: Supervised Machine Learning and Unsupervised Machine Learning.
With both ML types, each data point contains known attributes called "features" that can be used to make predictions. These will be the inputs that we will pass into a model.
In Supervised Machine Learning, each data point has labels in addition to features. A label is an attribute that we want the model to predict. It is the output when we use our model. The algorithm seeks to find the relationship between the features and the labels and builds a model that allows us to predict the value of one or more labels given a set of features. For example, we may have data containing online advertising features (date posted, site on which it appears, time of day, size of the ad, etc.) along with click-through rates, which would be our feature. After building a model from this data, we can predict a click-through rate based on an ad we plan to place.
In Unsupervised Machine Learning, the data has features, but no labels, so the algorithm focuses on clustering together data points with similar features. An example might be grouping images of cats into different breeds. After building a model from this image data, we can provide a new picture of a cat and ask which breed it most closely resembles.
In both Supervised and Unsupervised Learning, a Data Scientist can choose from various algorithms to build their model.
Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning designed to solve complex problems. With deep learning, we still provide data on which to build a model; but our algorithm contains multiple layers. The output of one layer is the input of the next layer. Because of the complexity of these problems and the requirement for multiple layers, Deep Learning requires more computing power and processing time. For complex problems, Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning may use Deep Learning.
Transfer Learning is related to Deep Learning. With Transfer Learning, we take advantage of other Deep Learning algorithms and reuse the output of Layers we already executed as input for one or more of our Deep Learning layers. Transfer Learning reduces the amount of computing resources and time required.
Artificial Intelligence allows computers to understand human languages, such as English, Spanish, or Arabic. By building a model based on human communications, AI systems can understand a statement or question presented in various ways, along with the context of that text. Tools like ChatGPT use Large Language Models (LLMs) to build a model that allows users to interact similar to how humans communicate. Natural Language Processing often uses Machine Learning to build its models.
Computers have long had the ability to search text data. One big challenge is determining the context of a search, particularly when a word or phrase has multiple meanings. Artificial Intelligence can infer that context from when and where the search initiates. When writing a paper about England, the term "Bath" is more likely to refer to the city in Somerset, UK than a tub where people cleanse themselves. Search engines like Google and Bing use AI to attempt to determine the context of a search, but tools like Azure Cognitive Search allow you to index your internal data intelligently. Intelligent Search often uses Machine Learning to build its models.
Generative AI is a type of Artificial Intelligence that focuses on creating content. Models built from existing data are used to generate new assets. This technology can be used to create images, text, or audio. Machine Learning or Deep Learning may be used to build the models to create these assets. OpenAI has developed two tools for creating OpenAI. ChatGPT generates text from input queries using a Large Language Model, while Dall-E generates images from an input description.
Fig. 1 shows the relationship between the concepts described above.
Fig. 1
In this article, I described some important concepts in Artificial Intelligence and how they relate to one another.
GCast 155:
Overview of Azure Monitor and Application Insights
Learn about Azure Monitor and Application Insights and how to plan an effective monitoring strategy for your application or service.
You can use the .NET Command Line Interface (CLI) to create, build and run a new ASP.NET application.
Navigate to the folder where you want to create your project.
Execute the following command:
dotnet new mvc -o of project>
This will create a folder with the same name as your project and will create inside that folder a project with that name and the .csproj extension. It will also create some subfolders and boilerplate code.
For example, if I issue the command:
dotnet new mvc -o mymvc
It will create a folder named "mymvc" and an ASP.NET MVC project inside that folder. By default, the project will have the same name as the folder. You can assign a different name using the "-n" argument, as in the following example:
dotnet new mvc -n myaspnetmvc -o mymvc
Navigate to this folder (cd mymvc) and view the contents (dir)
You will see something like the Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2 shows the files in the Visual Studio Code Explorer with some of the folders expanded to reveal the files within.
Fig. 2
The new application is configured to use HTTPS, which requires a trusted certificate. This can be a problem when running the application locally. Fortunately, you can execute the following command to tell ASP.NET to trust the certificate on your local machine.
dotnet dev-certs https --trust
The first time you run the command, a confirmation dialogue displays. Click YES to confirm if prompted.
Execute the following command from the project folder to build the ASP.NET application.
dotnet build
Execute the following command from the project folder to run the ASP.NET application locally.
dotnet run
NOTE: The last command will also build the project if any code file has changed since the last build.
When you run an ASP.NET application locally, it displays the URL of the default page, as in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3
In the example above, the application is at http://localhost:5076. You may open a browser and navigate to this URL or hold down the CTRL key and click the link. Fig. 4 shows the default page in a browser.
Fig. 4
To terminate the application, press CTRL+C in the command window.
In this article, you learned how to use the .NET Command Line Interface (CLI) to create, build and run a new ASP.NET application.
The Importance of Application Monitoring
Metrics, Logs, Traces, and Spans in Application Monitoring
Enabling Azure Application Insights for an App Service
Enabling Azure Application Insights on an Azure Virtual Machine
Creating an Azure Application Insights Service in the Azure Portal
Adding Application Insights Logging to an ASP.NET app using the .NET SDK
Enabling Diagnostic on an Azure SQL Managed Instance
Creating an Azure Monitor Alert Rule
Creating an Azure Monitor Alert Action Group
Episode 761
Craig Shoemaker on Online Course Creation
After many years of creating online courses, Craig Shoemaker is sharing his knowledge about what makes a good course and how to go about preparing to create one.
Links:
https://twitter.com/craigshoemaker
https://craigshoemaker.net/
https://leverage3podcast.com/
7/3
Today I am grateful to relax inside on a stormy day.
7/4
Today I am grateful I was born in the United States.
7/5
Today I am grateful to watch unregulated fireworks from the safety of my balcony last night.
7/6
Today I am grateful to see Nik West in concert with Nick and his family.
7/7
Today I am grateful to plan and book my first vacation of the year.
7/8
Today I am grateful to see "Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon" on my first visit to Lookingglass Theatre last night.
7/9
Today I am grateful to see a production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline at a local park last night.
7/10
Today I am grateful to attend the Square Roots festival in Lincoln Square yesterday.
7/11
Today I am grateful for coffee with Lwin yesterday.
7/12
Today I am grateful to close a bunch of tasks from last Fiscal Year.
7/13
Today I am grateful to deliver a presentation last night at the Azure Cleveland user group.
7/14
Today I am grateful to see Puddles Pity Party in concert last night.
7/15
Today I am grateful for a new pair of eyeglasses.
7/16
Today I am grateful to pass through so many block parties, farmers markets, and festivals on my ride yesterday.
7/17
Today I am grateful to see Iris Dement in concert last night.
7/18
Today I am grateful for a conversation with Christine yesterday.
7/19
Today I am grateful for all the excellent guests I have interviewed and scheduled for #TechnologyAndFriends the past few weeks.
7/20
Today I am grateful to catch up with Jennifer yesterday.
7/21
Today I am grateful to begin my first vacation of 2023!
7/22
Today I am grateful:
- to meet some of my teammates for the first time yesterday
- to attend the Dodgers-Rangers game last night on my first visit to Globe Life Field
7/23
Today I am grateful for:
- Lunch with Jason yesterday
- My first visit to the Dallas Museum of Art
- A Minor League Baseball game in Frisco, TX last night
7/24
Today I am grateful for:
- a visit to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum
- a walk around the campus of Southern Methodist University
7/25
Today I am grateful to see an exciting baseball game on my first visit to Minute Maid Park last night.
7/26
Today I am grateful for lunch with Donovan and Chelsea yesterday.
7/27
Today I am grateful to discover two beautiful parks of which I was unaware just 2 miles from my home.
7/28
Today I am grateful to attend the Microsoft Inspire partner event in Chicago yesterday.
7/29
Today I am grateful to sit on my balcony last night, sipping Frangelico, and watching thunderstorm.
7/30
Today I am grateful to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform the music of Carole King, Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell at Ravinia last night.
7/31
Today I am grateful for
- lunch at the Chicago Food Truck Festival
- a show at Second City last night
8/1
Today I am grateful for:
- a new espresso machine
- a call from Tiberiu yesterday
8/2
Today I am grateful to all who congratulated me yesterday, even though I did not deserve it.
8/3
Today I am grateful for a conversation with Matt yesterday
8/4
Today I am grateful to ride over to Grant Park and listen to Lollapalooza music from outside the gates last night.
8/5
Today I am grateful to put yesterday's medical procedure behind me.
8/6
Today I am grateful to enjoy Afghan food last night with Jill, John, and Sara
Leigh Bardugo achieved fame with her "Shadow and Bone" trilogy, which introduced a world loosely based on nineteenth-century Eastern Europe and Russia.
Bardugo followed up with "Six of Crows," – a story set in another part of the same world. The world consists of unstable governments on the verge of war and a world in which the Grishas are born with preternatural abilities. Many people fear the Grisha and some governments seek to control or exterminate them.
The anti-hero of the story is Kaz Bekker. He was an orphan who grew up in the tough ghetto of The Barrel. He survived by showing his toughness and convincing others to work for him. Ultra-rich merchant Jan Van Eck hires Kaz to break out a scientist from the world's most secure prison. This scientist invented jurda parem - a drug that enhances the mystical abilities of Grishas but leaves them weakened and addicted after just one or two doses. Nothing goes as planned, and Bekker's crew must improvise to save themselves and complete their mission.
Bekker and his five companions form the Six of Crows. The narrative's point of view shifts between them, giving the reader a look into their thoughts, reactions, and backstories.
Bardugo slowly reveals the past and motivation of each character, peeling away the layers of the story and introducing new twists.
If you enjoyed Bardugo's "Shadow and Bone" trilogy, you will enjoy this. The characters are new, but the universe is the same. It is an action story, a heist story, a love story, and a revenge story. The author achieves a balance as none of those concepts overshadow the others. I can see the author's writing and plotting getting stronger with each new book.
The characters are the strength of this story. They were each strong, intelligent, talented, and resourceful, yet each had their flaws. I like Bardugo's ability to create strong female characters.
This book is part one of a duology, so we are left with unresolved storylines, presumably concluded in "Crooked
Kingdom." I did not mind the cliffhanger, as I plan to pick up the sequel in the coming weeks.
The US Army assigned Major Victor Joppolo to administer the town of Adano, Italy after Allied forces drove out Mussolini's Fascists near the end of World War II.
The town needs many things: food, water, clean streets, affordable goods, safety, and a new bell for its tower. The Fascists removed the 700-year-old bell to melt it down for bullets, leaving the town without its most prized icon.
Joppolo does his best to treat the local citizens fairly and honestly, including trying to get a new bell. Despite bad behavior by many other American soldiers, he gradually wins the townspeople's hearts.
John Hersey's 1944 novel "A Bell for Adano" paints a plausible picture of life in a town suffering through war and occupation. He shows some of the absurdities of military bureaucracy, the selfishness of those clinging to power, the temptations of those in privilege, and the kindness of people trying to help others.
The novel focuses on the civilians affected by the war rather than the actions on the battlefield.
"A Bell for Adano" is a simple story told in a straightforward manner, as one would expect from a journalist like Hersey. And it is a touching story that warmed my heart. I grew to care about Adano and its people and to appreciate Major Joppolo. We need more men like him today.
GCast 154:
Creating an ASP.NET MVC Application from the Command Line
Learn how to create, run, and deploy an ASP.NET MVC Application using the CLI command line tool.
Application Insights is a set of tools within Azure Monitor that allow you to store metrics, telemetry data, and logs for future analysis.
But how long should you retain this data? There is a cost to storing it and managing that storage. We have options:
Application Insights supports each of these options. Archiving and retention of Application metrics is managed within the "Diagnostic settings" section.
To begin, log into the Azure Portal and navigate to the "Azure Monitor", as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
In the left menu, click the [Applications] button to display the "Applications" blade, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
Select the Application for which you wish to configure archiving and retention. Application details will display with the application's "Overview" blade selected, as shown in Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Click the [Diagnostic setting] button of the "Monitoring" section of the left menu (Fig. 4) to display the "Diagnostic setting" blade, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Click the [Add diagnostic setting] button (Fig. 6) to display the "Diagnostic setting" dialog, as shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
At the "Diagnostic setting name" field, enter a name for this set of configuration settings.
The left side of this dialog lists different types of data that Azure Monitor captures. You can manage a set of data by checking the checkbox next to that item. Check the [allLogs] checkbox to checkbox to check everything under the Logs Categories section.
Fig. 8 shows several of the categories checked, along with the all the metrics.
Fig. 8
On the right side of the "Diagnostic setting" dialog, you tell Azure what action to take on the checked metrics. This article concerns archiving and retention, so Fig. 9 shows additional prompts displayed when you check the "Archive to a storage account" checkbox.
Fig. 9
Select the Azure subscription and storage account into which you wish to move the metric data after Azure deletes it from the Monitor database. The Storage account must be in the same region as the logs.
In addition, you can set the retention days, indicating how long a record will remain in the storage account before it is automatically deleted. Setting the retention to 0 indicates that the data will never be deleted automatically. Fig. 10 shows these settings.
Fig. 10
Click the [Save] button (Fig. 11) to commit all the settings you have made in this dialog.
Fig. 11
In this article, you learned how to configure retention for Azure Application Insights Logs and Metrics
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/diagnostic-settings
Application Insights is a set of tools within Azure Monitor. These tools allow you to view the performance of your application or service quickly and to review detailed information to determine the causes of an incident. Using Application Insights, you can configure your applications to store metrics, telemetry data, and logs for future analysis.
A convenient way to present the collected data is using a Dashboard - a single screen that presents multiple views of one or more data sets. A Dashboard allows the user to quickly get a snapshot of important information.
To begin, log into the Azure Portal and navigate to the "Azure Monitor", as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
In the left menu, click the [Applications] button to display the "Applications" blade, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
Select the Application for which you wish to create a Dashboard. Application details will display with the application's "Overview" blade selected, as shown in Fig. 3
Fig. 3
A default Dashboard is created for this application. Click the [Application Dashboard] button (Fig. 4) to display this default Dashboard, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
You can accept this default Dashboard as-is, or you can edit it, or you can create a new one.
To create a new Dashboard, click the [Create] button (Fig. 6) to display the "Create a Dashboard" dialog, as shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Select one of the templates displayed in this dialog to begin with a Dashboard containing some initial visualizations or select the "Custom" template to begin with an empty Dashboard. The "Create an Application Insights dashboard" dialog displays, as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8
At the "Dashboard name" field, enter a descriptive name for this new Dashboard.
At the "Subscription" field, select the Azure Subscription into which this Dashboard will be stored. Many of you will have only one Azure subscription.
At the "Select resource" field, select the resource the Azure resource for which you wish to see visualizations.
Click the [Submit] button to create the Dashboard.
Fig. 9 shows a newly created dashboard for an Azure App Service.
Fig. 9
You can edit any Dashboard. With this (or any) Dashboard displayed, click the [Edit} button (Fig. 10) to place the Dashboard into Edit mode. In Edit mode, you can add new Tiles, delete existing Tiles, and drag a Tile to move it to a new location on the screen.
Fig. 10
To add a new Tile, click the [Add Tiles] button (Fig. 11), which displays the "Tile Gallery" dialog shown in Fig. 12.
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Select a desired Tile template in the "Tile Gallery" dialog and click the [Add} button to add this Tile to the bottom of the Dashboard.
To configure the Tile, click the [Context] button (Fig. 13) in the Tile's top-right corner to display the Context menu (Fig 14) and select "Configure Tile settings" to display the "Configure Tile settings" dialog, as shown in Fig. 15. (NOTE: The context menu button may not appear until you hover over it.)
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
The "Configure Tile settings" dialog allows you to override the time span for this Tile (by default the past 24 hours, as inherited from the Dashboard") and set filter settings. Fig. 15 shows a sample "Configure Tile settings" dialog.
Fig. 15
Click the [Apply] button to save your configuration setting changes.
To remove a Tile, click the [Delete] button (Fig. 16) in the top right corner of the Tile. This button often will not display until you hover over it.
Fig. 16
To resize a Tile, hover over the bottom right corner until the cursor becomes a double-pointed arrow and drag to the desired size.
To move a Tile, hover over the Tile, until the cursor becomes a 4-pointed arrow and drag the Tile to the desired location.
At any time, you can click the [Preview] button (Fig. 17) to see what the Dashboard will look like when you save it.
Fig. 17
Click the [Save] button (Fig. 18) to save your changes to the Dashboard or click the [Cancel] button (Fig. 19) to discard your changes.
Fig. 18
Fig. 19
In this article, you learned how to create and modify an Azure Application Insights Dashboard.
Episode 760
Oren Eini on Building Projects that Endure
Oren Eini began creating RavenDB 15 years ago and the project is still going strong. He discusses some of the things he learned about maintaining a project over many years so that they will endure.
Richard Ford's "The Lay of the Land" takes place a decade after the weekend depicted in "Independence Day." Protagonist Frank Bascombe is now 55 and thinking about death almost all the time. Frank recently learned he has prostate cancer, which profoundly impacted his outlook.
Frank is experiencing what he calls his "Permanent Phase," in which he foolishly believes his life's major stressors and uncertainties are behind him. He is doing well financially. He owns his own real estate company and lives in a house on the beach. Throughout the week, Frank interacts with his ex-wife, his immature adult son, his conflicted lesbian daughter, his assimilated immigrant business partner, and a host of strangers and acquaintances. But most of his encounters are unpleasant, and some are hostile. The novel takes us through Thanksgiving week and follows Frank's actions and thoughts - almost minute by minute. The narration is written in the first person and is told in the present tense, except for some flashbacks. As a result, we get an account of all that happens during Frank's waking hours and his impressions of the events and the people involved. Frequently, pages of Frank's opinion follow a page of dialogue and action.
I have not decided whether I like Frank. He is polite to most people, but he disdains many of them. Regardless, he does not deserve many things that happen to him. He and his second wife Sally were happily married for years when Sally's husband Wally reappeared decades after he was declared legally dead. Sally decides to leave Frank and rejoin Wally in Scotland, where he has been living all this time.
Ford has a casual style that appeals to me and makes Frank's philosophy interesting and bearable. Frank is quirky and arrogant, but not unbearably so. He is a detached observer who may or may not be a reliable narrator. Some of his observations are insightful, and some are trivial. He compares everyone's looks to 1940s movie stars for no obvious reason.
This book contains both more action and more introspection than its predecessor. Like "Independence Day," this one relies far more on characters than a plot to advance the story. The book also presents a chaotic climax near the end as Frank witnesses a violent confrontation outside his home on Thanksgiving afternoon. It is more brutal than the climax of "Independence Day," but it serves a similar purpose by injecting sudden and unexpected action into the book.
I had a free weekend with nothing to do. Everyone close to me planned to be out of town, and none needed me to tag along.
I decided I needed a vacation. 2023 was more than half over, and I had taken only two vacation days and had not left town for either of them. This was a mistake since my company recently switched to an unlimited vacation policy.
So, I booked a flight to Texas. My primary goal was to see a Rangers game in Arlington and an Astros game in Houston. After checking the schedule, I flew to Dallas Friday afternoon and booked a hotel in Arlington, then flew to Houston Monday morning before my flight home Tuesday evening.
I drove straight from the DFW airport to Hard Eight BBQ - my favourite BBQ restaurant in the Dallas area, where I planned to meet some co-workers. My team is scattered across the US, and I joined this team over a year ago, but I have met very few of my teammates in person, thanks to the COVID pandemic and a limited travel budget. It was great to see Tommy, Pardeep, and Thomas for the first time after interacting with them virtually for thirteen months.
I attended the Texas Rangers - Los Angeles Dodgers game at the new Globe Life Field on Friday evening. I aim to see a game in every Major League Baseball team's home stadium. I went to a Rangers home game a few years ago but decided I needed to return to experience their new stadium. Globe Life Field is beautiful, and the dome kept the temperatures manageable, despite the 100-degree outside temperature. The game was exciting for the first seven innings as each team traded runs and the lead, but the Dodgers blew the game open with six runs in the eighth and ninth innings, winning 11-5. The highlight came in the fifth inning when Dodgers rookie center fielder Jonny Deluca made spectacular catches on back-to-back Rangers at-bats. The old baseball stadium still stands across the street, where it serves as the home to the Arlington Renegades of the XFL, North Texas SC of MLS Next Pro, and the Dallas Jackals of Major League Rugby.
I drove to downtown Dallas on Saturday morning and met my friend Jason for lunch. Jason and I worked together for years until he left Microsoft in 2019 to enter the startup world. One of my best Microsoft memories is of the time Jason and I drove to St. Louis years ago to visit our friend Bill, who was dying of pancreatic cancer. We surprised Bill with a demo of the HoloLens before its official release.
After lunch, I visited the Dallas Museum of Art, where I spent most of the afternoon. The museum features a variety of works, but I was most impressed with its European Impressionist collection. Although smaller than the Art Institute of Chicago, this museum rivals its northern counterpart in the quality of this genre.
Saturday evening, I decided I needed more baseball; so I drove to Frisco, TX, north of Dallas, and attended a game between the Frisco Roughriders and the San Antonio Missions. They celebrated Hispanic diversity this night by temporarily renaming the teams Los Quesos de Frisco and the San Antonio Flying Chanclas. Minor League baseball is always fun, with seats close to the field and kid-friendly activities between innings. I witnessed a grand slam by Thomas Saggese of the Roughriders / Quesos - something I have only seen a few times in my life at a professional baseball game. The home team won 8-6.
I slept in Sunday morning, then drove to the George W. Bush Presidential Library on the campus of Southern Methodist University, where I spent most of the afternoon. The country has mixed opinions about Bush's presidency, but this museum celebrated his positive achievements. His reaction to the events following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, largely defined his legacy in the eyes of most Americans. Well-produced videos featured prominently in this museum, telling the story of Bush's life, character, and actions from the point of view of the former President and his family.
After leaving the museum, I walked around the SMU campus for a while, taking in the sights. For an urban campus, it has some beautiful landscaping and open spaces. I could not spend much time walking around outside, as the temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit all weekend.
My plan for Monday afternoon was to visit one or two museums in Houston. Sadly, a mechanical failure forced the cancellation of my morning flight, and I did not arrive in Houston until late afternoon. I missed the museum visits but arrived in time for an exciting Astros - Rangers game at Minute Maid Park. The Astros won on a walk-off RBI with one out in the ninth inning.
I met my friend Donovan and his wife, Chelsea, for lunch on Monday. Donovan recently retired from Microsoft, and the two spend their time traveling around North America, racing their Tesla and riding roller coasters. It was good to catch up with good Tex-Mex food and good company. As a bonus, Donovan brought a charger for my Kindle, so I was able to read on the flight home.
As I write this, I am sitting in the terminal at the George H.W. Bush Airport in Houston, waiting to board my plane. I am exhausted but glad I came to Texas. I visited two museums, attended three baseball games, and met with old and new friends. It was well worth the trip.
An Azure Monitor Alert is an Action taken when a system meets a predetermined condition. These are useful to notify us when a system has a problem or a potential problem. You can read more here.
We can create Alerts in Azure Monitor, as described here.
An Alert Action Group defines notifications that the Alert sends or actions triggered by the Alert.
Azure creates a number of Action Groups automatically, but you can create more if desired. Creating custom Action Groups is useful if you want to notify specific people, roles, or groups that are not identified in the built-in Action Groups. Once created, you can use the custom Action Group for more than one Alert.
This article describes how to create a custom Action Group.
To begin, log into the Azure Portal and navigate to the "Azure Monitor", as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
In the left menu, select the [Alerts] button (Fig. 2) to display the "Alerts" blade, as shown in Fig. 3
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Click the [Create action group] button (Fig. 4) to display the "Create action group" dialog, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
The "Create action group" dialog has multiple tabs: "Basics", "Notifications", "Actions", "Tags", and "Review + create". The "Basics" tab displays initially.
At the "Subscription" dropdown, select the Subscription into which you want to create this Action Group. Many of you will have only one Subscription.
At the "Resource group" dropdown, select a resource group into which you want to organize this Action Group or click the "Create new" link to create a new resource group.
At the "Region" dropdown, select the region in which you want to save this Action Group.
At the "Action group name" field, enter a unique name for this Action Group.
At the "Display name" field, enter a name that will describe and easily identify this Action Group.
Select the "Notifications" tab, as shown in Fig.6.
Fig. 6
A the "Notification type" dropdown, (Fig. 7)select:
If you selected "Email Azure Resource Manager Role" (Fig. 8), select the specific "Aure Resource Manager Role" you want to message, as shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
If you selected "Email/SMS message/Push/Voice", the "Email/SMS message/Push/Voice" dialog displays, as shown in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10
Here you can choose whether to send an email, SMS message, Mobile Push Notification, or Voice call. You must complete the details for any checkboxes you select. Fig. 11 shows the required field filled in for an Email notification,
Fig. 11
By default, the message will contain human readable text. If you wish to send JSON, toggle the "Enable he common alert schema" button to [Yes]. This is useful if your recipient has an automated process to parse and handle the message.
Click the [OK] button when you complete the "Email/SMS message/Push/Voice" dialog. The dialog closes and the "Notifications" tab of the "Create action group" dialog displays with the Notification type filled in, as shown in Fig. 12.
Fig. 12
Enter a name for this notification type.
Select the "Actions" tab, as shown in Fig. 13.
Fig. 13
On this tab, you can configure other actions triggered by the Alert. Actions selected here will send data to another application or service. At the "Action type" dropdown (Fig. 14), select the action you wish the Alert to trigger.
Fig. 14
When you select an Action Type, a dialog displays prompting you for more information. The information required depends on which Action type you selected. Fig. 15 shows the "Azure Function" dialog.
Fig. 15
Complete the required information and click the [OK] button to save it and close the dialog.
Select the "Tags" tab, as shown in Fig. 16.
Fig. 16
Here you can enter name/value pairs that act as metadata associated with the Action Group. While not required, this metadata is useful in reporting, as it allows you to group, sort, and filter on these fields.
Select the "Review + create" tab, as shown in Fig. 17.
Fig. 17
If you omitted any required information or entered anything incorrectly, an error message displays on this tab. Correct any errors before proceeding. When all information is correct, click the [Create] button to create the Action Group.
After the Action Group is created, it will be listed in the "Action Groups" tab of the "Alerts" blade, as shown in Fig. 18.
Fig. 18
Click the [Refresh] button (Fig. 19) if you do not see your new Action Group listed.
Fig. 19
You can now use this Action Group when creating a new Alert.
In this article, you learned how to create a custom Action Group for Azure Alerts.
An Azure Monitor Alert Rule is an Action taken when a system meets a predetermined condition. These are useful to notify us when a system has a problem or a potential problem. You can read more here.
We can create Alert Rules in Azure Monitor.
To begin, log into the Azure Portal and navigate to the "Azure Monitor", as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
In the left menu, select the [Alerts] button (Fig. 2) to display the "Alerts" blade, as shown in Fig. 3
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Expand the [Create] menu button and click the [Action group] button (Fig. 4) to display the "Create an alert rule" dialog, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
The "Create an alert rule" dialog has multiple tabs: "Scoope", "Condition", "Actions", "Details", "Tags", and "Review + create". The "Scope" tab displays initially.
A Scope defines the Azure resources that will trigger an Alert.
Click the [Select scope] button (Fig. 6) to display the "Select resource" dialog, as shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
This dialog lists all the resource groups in the current subscription. Expand a resource group to reveal the Azure resources within that resource group, as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8
Select the resource that will trigger the Alert and click the [Apply] button to close the dialog and return to the "Scope" tab of the "Create an alert rule" dialog, as shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 9
The scope will now list in this tab.
Note that you can only select one scope per Alert Rule. Click the [Select scope] button again if you wish to change the scope.
Select the "Condition" tab, as shown in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10
On this tab, you can configure the condition that must be met to trigger the alert actions.
At the "Signal name" dropdown, select the metric on which you will base the condition, as shown in Fig. 11.
Fig. 11
The list displayed depends on the type of resource selected in the Scope. Popular signals are listed, but you can see more by clicking the "See all signals" link.
After you select a signal, a dialog similar to Fig. 12 displays.
Fig. 12
Here you can specify the details of the condition, such as how often to check and the threshold involved. For thresholds, you have the option of entering a static value or allowing machine learning to determine what constitutes a low, medium, or high value based on historical data of your application. This is useful if you want Azure to notify you when the system deviates from its normal operation.
Select the "Actions" tab, as shown in Fig. 13.
Fig. 13
On this tab, you can configure the actions that occur when the condition is met. An action can be a notification sent to someone via email, text, phone call, or mobile application push. It can also be a message sent to another application or service, such as an Azure Function or Event Hub.
Click the [Select action group] button (Fig. 14) to display the "Select action groups" dialog, as shown in Fig. 15.
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Azure creates a few Action Groups that send notifications to those assigned to Azure roles. Select the action group you want to notify.
If none of the built-in Action Groups meet your needs, you can create a custom Action Group, as described here.
Select the "Details" tab, as shown in Fig. 16.
Fig. 16
On this tab, you can configure miscellaneous details of the Alert Rule, including a name and description to easily identify it later.
At the "Severity" dropdown, select the severity of the issue when the condition is met. Values range from Critical to Informational / Verbose, as shown in Fig. 17.
Fig. 17
The Severity should be an indication of the priority of the incident that triggered the alert, which is based on the issue's impact (how many people or systems are affected) and its urgency (how soon we need to fix it). The matrix in Fig. 18 will help in determining this.
Fig. 18
Select the "Tags" tab, as shown in Fig. 19.
Fig. 19
Here you can enter name/value pairs that act as metadata associated with the Action Group. While not required, this metadata is useful in reporting, as it allows you to group, sort, and filter on these fields.
Select the "Review + create" tab, as shown in Fig. 20.
Fig. 20
If you omitted any required information or entered anything incorrectly, an error message displays on this tab. Correct any errors before proceeding. When all information is correct, click the [Create] button to create the Action Rule.
In this article, you learned how to create an Azure Monitor Alert Rule.
When building a software system of any complexity, it is useful to collect information about the use and performance of that system. Azure Monitor provides the ability to capture and persist metrics and logs. We can later review this data using reports or graphics, which helps us determine if there are any issues, allowing us to correct those issues.
However, this requires us to check these reports, which involves a delay. Some events require more immediate attention. Fortunately, Azure Monitor provides the ability to create Alerts to do this. An Alert will perform an action based on a specified condition, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
The signal can be any metric collected by Azure Monitor, such as CPU usage, memory usage, or response time.
Typically, that condition will be a metric that falls outside an acceptable boundary. For example, we may wish to know when a web application's CPU usage exceeds 50% of capacity.
An Action can be a notification, such as an email, an SMS message, or a phone call. In addition, we can tell Azure to send a message to another system, such as an Azure Function, an Event Hub, or a Logic App. By sending a message to another system, we can configure a more complex workflow to respond to the alert.
An Action Group defines what actions to perform and who or what to notify.
Alerts are useful to notify us of a problem, so we can quickly know about it and correct it. But alerts can also let us know before a problem occurs. Low disc space may not cause a problem yet, but knowing about it helps us correct it before it becomes a problem.
It helps to label the severity of an issue when sending an alert. Consider the impact of an issue (how many people or systems are affected) and the urgency (how soon we need to fix it) when determining the severity. High-urgency/high-impact issues take top priority, while low-impact/low-urgency issues may require no action and should not be a candidate for alerts. Fig. 2 illustrates this matrix.
Fig. 2
This article discusses the importance of Alerts and how to use them. In the following articles, I will show how to define an Action Group and an Azure Monitor Alert so that you can implement Azure Monitor Alerts.
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The bomb detonated above the city, destroying most of the buildings and killing a hundred thousand people - nearly half the city's population.
Journalist John Hersey traveled to Hiroshima after the war and interviewed six survivors of the explosion. He wrote about it in his book "Hiroshima."
The survivors - two clergymen, two doctors, a widow, and a young female clerk - were near the city's edge when they saw the flash of light. Their paths crossed multiple times.
Hersey relays their stories in a straightforward journalistic style. It reminded me of Thornton Wilder's classic novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," but it struck me harder knowing that these were real stories of real people.
The first four chapters cover the two weeks immediately following the detonation, as the survivors deal with the injuries to themselves, the destruction of their homes and workplaces, and the massive devastation of their city. The New Yorker published these chapters in its August 1946 issue - a year after the incident. The issue quickly sold out, and the chapters were published as a book shortly after.
Hersey returned to Japan forty years later to learn about the lives of the six survivors after the war. Most of them suffered long-term physical and mental effects from the experience. Some had passed away in the years between. He told their later life stories in the July 1985 issue of the New Yorker. Editions of the book published after 1985 included this as a final chapter.
The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and on Nagasaki three days later undoubtedly led to Japan's surrender less than a month later. But this book does not focus on the reasons for the bomb or whether its use was justified. It seeks instead to shine a light on the effect the bomb had on the ordinary people in its path. No one has dropped an atomic bomb on a city since then, and "Hiroshima" may have contributed to widespread resistance to nuclear warfare. One cannot help but be moved by the misery the victims experience after such an attack.
More than any book I can remember, "Hiroshima" brought the horrors of war to life. Nations go to war, which often causes collateral damage, destroying the lives of innocent bystanders. Hersey gave faces and voices to these victims.
Episode 759
Michael Brown on Juneteenth Conference
Michael Brown discusses the Juneteenth conference - a conference for African American technologists. He talks about organizing the conference, speaker diversity, and the history of Juneteenth.
Links:
Leigh Bardugo's "Ruin and Rising" concludes the trilogy she began with "Shadow and Bone" and continued with "Siege and Storm."
Each book gets a little better and a little darker.
In this volume, the evil Darkling sets his sights on capturing young Alina to exploit her powers so that he can rule the world. Alina can generate vast amounts of heat and light and can increase that power exponentially by finding and killing the three amplifiers. She has conquered two and seeks the third to improve her chances against the Darkling.
Meanwhile, the Darkling destroys cities and kills thousands in his quest to find Alina. Alina is on the run with a small group of rebels seeking the final amplifier and hiding from their pursuer.
The heroine makes alliances, decides who to trust, and wrestles with difficult moral decisions.
This is an exciting novel with plenty of action and unexpected twists. Bardugo brings her characters to life as they evolve in realistic ways.
"Ruin and Rising" is a satisfying ending to a good trilogy.
We first met Frank Bascombe in Richard Ford's 1986 novel "The Sportswriter." Ford returned to the character in 1995 with "Independence Day."
Frank is older and has left the world of sportswriting to become a real estate agent in New Jersey suburbia. He has a decent career, an ex-wife, a pretty girlfriend, a stable financial situation, a nice home (bought from his ex-wife), and a troubled teenage son.
While this book provides no straightforward plot, it takes the reader through a holiday weekend inside and outside Frank's mind as he navigates the different parts of his life.
He begins by showing houses to a prospective customer who cannot make up his mind after dozens of showings and accuses Frank of everything from dishonesty to homosexuality.
We see Frank struggle with his romantic relationship. Girlfriend Sally does not know how to handle Frank's attempts to keep her at arm's length.
We see his frustration with his ex-wife, who has remarried a man that both Frank and his son Paul abhor.
And we travel with Frank and Paul to the Basketball and Baseball Halls of Fame as they try and fail to establish a decent father-son bond.
Ford creates a memorable character and reveals that character through his thoughts. The entire book is written in the first person and the present tense, giving readers the impression they are eavesdropping on Frank's thoughts as they pass through his mind. Frank is drifting through his privileged life, trying to convince himself that he is content.
Outwardly, Frank is calm and polite - even to those who are rude and abusive. He almost always says the right thing; when he does not, he is immediately aware of his mistake. But inwardly, he despises nearly everyone, holding them in contempt. He is a nihilist who observes and interprets the world but seems to exist outside of it. He combines cynicism and angst so that the reader feels sympathy for him. A lifelong Democrat, Frank is frustrated by the poor 1988 campaign run by Michael Dukakis (Historical Note: Bush handily defeated Dukakis in the fall election.)
Anyone else would long since have abandoned the racist, unreasonable husband who refuses to like any of the houses Frank shows him, but Frank takes it all in stride.
The road trip with the intelligent but troubled son is the most interesting part of the story. Paul has been disruptive and violent lately, including assaulting a security guard and striking his stepfather with an oar. Paul shows symptoms of autism and Tourette syndrome. His nearly constant sarcasm places him on the wrong side of the line between funny and annoying.
Frank attempts to connect with him, but his own faults make this problematic. The father is self-absorbed and indecisive. Within 36 hours, Frank considers asking his ex-wife to remarry him, confesses his love to his girlfriend, tries to pick up the young chef at a Cooperstown motel, and drunk dials his old sweetheart.
The story finishes on July 4 - American Independence Day - but it is also about Frank's struggle for Independence from his past.
"Independence Day" won Ford the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. It is a classic episodic novel told with humor and sensitivity.
Iris Dement looked out and smiled at the audience, which filled the Old Town School of Folk Music's Maurer Auditorium. "You know my music," she said. "You know what you're in for." The audience laughed and applauded. And Iris did what she does best. She sang and played guitar and piano and entertained for 90 minutes.
Dement's hillbilly twang tells us she has never left the Arkansas roots of her childhood. Her music is steeped in traditional country music with gospel, folk, and blues mixed in. Sunday evening, she played them all. She was joined onstage by bassist Liz Draper for the entire set and for a few songs by Ana Egge, a sweet-voiced songwriter who also served as the night's opening act.
Known for her longtime collaboration with the late Chicagoan John Prine, Dement delighted the crowd when she sang one of his songs.
Iris still seems to enjoy performing, and her voice and playing sound the same as when she first entered our consciousness in 1992 with her debut album "Infamous Angel." She closed the show with an encore of two songs from that album: "Let the Mystery Be" and "Our Town." The audience sang along with the band during the chorus of each.
We knew what we were in for. And we loved it.
GCast 153:
Transactable Containers Labs, Lab 3: Publishing the Container Offer
A walkthrough of Lab 3 of the Transactable Containers labs Learn how a Microsoft partner can create, package, and submit a Kubernetes application to the Azure marketplace
This video walks through Lab 3 in which you publish your container offer to the Azure Marketplace.
Links: https://microsoft.github.io/Mastering-the-Marketplace/container/#hands-on-labs
https://davidgiard.com/becoming-a-microsoft-partner
Diagnostic Settings allows an Azure SQL Managed Instance to interact with Azure Monitor. You must enable and configure this feature in order to take advantage of it.
Navigate to the Azure Portal and log in. Then, navigate to your Azure SQL Managed Instance, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
From the left menu, click the [Diagnostic Settings] button in the "Monitoring" section (Fig. 2) to open the "Diagnostic Settings" blade, as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Click the [Add diagnostic setting] button (Fig. 4) to open the "Diagnostic setting" dialog, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
The left side of this dialog allows you to select the information you want to log (Resource Usage Statistics, Devops operations Audit Logs, and SQL Security Audit Events). You may select any or all these events. Clicking the "AllLogs" checkbox checks all three categories below. Clicking the "audit" checkbox checks only the "Devops operations Audit Logs" and "SQL Security Audit Events" checkboxes.
The right side of this dialog allows you to configure a destination to send events. Clicking any of these four checkboxes displays prompts for more information.
If you check the "Send to Log Analytics workspace" checkbox, the additional prompts shown in Fig. 6 display.
Fig. 6
Here you can select the Log Analytics workspace to which you want to send the event information. A has its own data repository and configuration.
If you check the "Archive to a storage account" checkbox, the additional prompts shown in Fig. 7 display.
Fig. 7
Here you can select the Storage Account into which event data will be persisted.
If you check the "Stream to an event hub" checkbox, the additional prompts shown in Fig. 8 display.
Fig. 8
Here you can select the Event Hub details to which you want to stream events collected from this SQL Managed Instance.
If you check the "Send to partner solution" checkbox, the additional prompts shown in Fig. 9 display.
Fig. 9
Here you can select a third-party application to which you want to send your data. This is useful if you are using a tool like DataDog or Elastic to monitor your Azure applications.
Before configuring the destinations on the right side of the "Diagnostic setting" dialog, the destination must already exist. For instance, you must create the Storage Account or Event Hub before you can send data to it.
In this article, you learned how to enable and configure Azure Diagnostics for an Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Azure Application Insights (App Insights) provides a fast, scalable way to collect metrics within an application or service and save that information to a log in Azure for later viewing, querying, reporting, or analysis.
In many cases, you can configure Application Insights without writing any code. However, you want more control of what is logged and when it is logged, you modify code in your application using an SDK. This article shows how to use the Application Insights SDK for .NET Core in an ASP.NET application.
To write anything to Azure Application Insights, you must have an existing Azure Application Insights service. You can configure Application Insights when you create another service. For example, this article describes how to configure App Insights for an Azure Web App. You can also create an App Insights service independent of other services, as described in this article.
However, you create the App Insights service, you need to retrieve the Instrumentation Key and Connection String from that service. Navigate to the "Overview" blade of the App Insights service and copy the Connection String, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
To get started with your .NET project, you must add the SDK to your .NET application. This is done by adding the Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ApplicationInsights NuGet package. In Visual Studio, you can right-click a project, select "Manage NuGet Packages..." and searching for the package. Alternatively, you can install the package in the project's root folder with the following command:
dotnet add package Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ApplicationInsights --source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
To use Application Insights in our .NET Core project, we need to configure it using the appsettings.json file. Add the following to this file:
{
"ApplicationInsights": {
"InstrumentationKey": "INSTRUMENTATION_KEY_FROM_AZURE_APP_INSIGHTS_OVERVIEW_BLADE","
},
"Logging": {
"LogLevel": {
"Default": "Information",
"Microsoft.AspNetCore": "Warning"
}
},
"AllowedHosts": "*"
}
The first thing to do in our code is to tell the program we are using Application Insights logging and configure it appropriately.
Add the following code to the program.cs:
builder.Logging.AddApplicationInsights(
configureTelemetryConfiguration: (config) =>
config.ConnectionString = "CONNECTION_STRING_FROM_AZURE_APP_INSIGHTS_OVERVIEW_BLADE",
configureApplicationInsightsLoggerOptions: (options) => { }
);
builder.Logging.AddFilter("your-category", LogLevel.Trace);
This lets the engine know that any logging statements should be directed to our Application Insights service. By default, logging statements are only written to the console.
Now, you can write your logging code. This code is the same regardless of the destination of your logs.
Add the following code at the top of each class in which you want to log.
private readonly ILogger _logger;
where NAME_OF_THIS_CLASS is the name of the class in which this code appears.
The ILogger interface contains methods, such as _LogInformation, LogWarning, and LogError that allow you to log different types of messages.
_logger.LogInformation("Demo Info", "This is an info message");
_logger.LogWarning("Demo Warning", "This is a warning message");
_logger.LogError("Demo Error", "This is an error message");
You can view the logs in Application Insights. They are stored in the "traces" table. You can view them with a query like the following:
traces
| order by timestamp desc
Which yields results like those in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3 shows details when I expand one of the log entries.
Fig. 3
In this article, I showed you how to log information, warning, and errors from a .NET Core application into Azure Application Insights.
Episode 758
Mike Amundsen on HyperCLI and HyperLANG
Mike Amundsen describes HyperCLI - an open source command-line tool for interacting with REST APIs and HyperLANG - the language to interact with this tool.
Links
https://github.com/webapicookbook/hyper
https://twitter.com/hyper_cli
https://mamund.substack.com/
Sam Clay was a street-smart Jewish kid from New York City. His cousin Joe Kavalier escaped to New York after the Nazis invaded Prague. Joe's training as an artist, a magician, and an escape artist helped them create a masked superhero known as The Escapist.
Together, they sold the idea to a publisher and began writing comic books.
Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" takes us through 15 years in the lives of the two cousins.
Kavalier, Clay, and the Escapist have their own story, set against the backdrop of the early comic book industry. Numerous storylines concern their involvement in this industry. Their publisher applies pressure to stop portraying Nazis as villains because America has not yet entered the war, and they wish to sell comics in Germany. The publishers of Superman sue The Escapist's team, claiming they stole the character idea, which leads to a lengthy court battle. And, as in the real world, the creators of popular comic book heroes share in very few profits generated by their creation.
As someone who collected and read comic books well into adulthood, I loved the references to the medium's history. We saw the rise of superheroes during World War II, the decline in popularity after the war, and the attacks blaming comics for juvenile delinquency and homosexuality. This era was the Golden Age of Comics, which began with Superman's 1939 debut and ended when Fredric Wertham's 1954 book "Seduction of the Innocent" prompted Senate hearings, which blamed comic books for juvenile delinquency and hedonism.
But this is more than a comic book story. Chabon's story gives us a love triangle, a family lost to the war, friendship, and men struggling with their sexuality.
The author expertly uses the comic book heroes as a metaphor for the struggles of ordinary people; the Escapist as a metaphor for those trying to escape the persecution of the Nazis; and magic as a metaphor for the illusions of everyday life.
Joe is the most compelling character in this novel. His fictional hero succeeds in battling Hitler's power, but he longs to contribute more tangibly to this fight - to kill Nazis and rescue his family trapped in Czechoslovakia. When he falls short, the reader feels his pain.
This is one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year. I could not wait to get to the next chapter.
Puddles Pity Party is the brainchild of Mike Geier, who created the alter ego of Puddles, a giant sad clown. Geier stands at 6'8" in height, making him stand out, even if he did not choose to dress in clown makeup and a black and white clown costume when he appears as Puddles.
Geier brought his Puddles Pity Party show to Chicago's City Winery Thursday evening before a sold-out crowd.
The show opened with a video montage of Kevin Costner in various movie roles, accompanied by Costner's recording of country and Western songs. While the video played, Puddles made his way through the crowd shaking hands with nearly every audience member in the venue.
He reached the stage, slowly dragged the microphone across the set, and launched into a beautiful pitch-perfect rendition of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" as clips from "The Walking Dead" played on the video screen. Videos played during each of his songs, sometimes in a humorous way that contrasted with the sad material Puddles chose. At one point, he played an obviously fake audio track accompanied by a video of Richard Branson in which the billionaire appeared to implore Puddles to sing "David Bowie's Space Oddity. The singer complied.
Interpreting the music of others is the artist's specialty. He covered songs by Warren Zevon ("Desperadoes Under the Eaves"), Britney Spears ("Toxic"), and Eric Carmen ("All By Myself"), among others.
On a couple of occasions, he performed a medley as when he mashed up Ozzy Osborne's "Crazy Train" with the Police's "Message in a Bottle" and Styx's "Come Sail Away" with "Let It Go" from Disney's "Frozen." In a similar mashup, he sang the lyrics of Gilligan's Island to the tune of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," a concept that originated with Little Roger and the Goosebumps decades ago.
Puddles managed to entertain us without saying a word. In addition to his excellent voice, he communicated through mimes and brought audience members on stage to help him perform. One man dressed in a tequila bottle costume as Puddles sang Los Lobos's "Estoy Sentado Aquí"; another woman accompanied Puddles on a cardboard guitar.
The performance was reminiscent of The Blue Man Group, which also combines physical humor with quality music.
This modern version of Pagliacci put on one of the most entertaining shows I have ever seen.
Azure Application Insights is a part of Azure Monitoring that collects logs of event, error, and other information for later analysis, reporting, and actions.
You can configure an Application Insights when creating another service, such as an Azure Web App or you can create the Application Insights service on its own and point your applications to this service.
To begin, navigate to the Azure Portal and log in.
To see if your subscription already has any Application Insights services, type in the search box at the top of the portal and select "Application Insights," as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
A list of Application Insights services displays, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
If you do not already have a service, or you wish to create a new one, navigate back to Azure Portal Home Page and click the [Create a Resource] button (Fig. 3) and search for Application Insights, as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
A list of cards with services that match your search criteria displays. On the "Application Insights" card (Fig. 5), expand the menu at the bottom and select the [Create] button, as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
The "Create Application Insights" blade displays with the "Basics" tab selected, as shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 7
At the "Subscription" field, select the subscription into which you want to create this service. Many of you will have only one subscription.
At the "Resource Group" field, select a Resource Group into which you want to organize this service or click the "Create new" link to create a new Resource Group.
At the "Name" field, enter a unique name for this Application Insights service.
At the "Region" dropdown, select a region in which to store the service. Consider which applications and services will read to and write from this service and where they are located. You want to minimize latency.
Under the "Workspace" section, you can select a subscription and Log Analytics Workspace associated with this service. You can select an existing workspace or create a new one for this service. A Log Analytics Workspace specifies the storage location and configuration settings of the data captured by Application Insights.
If desired, you can add name/value pairs on the "Tabs" blade, as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8
These are used as metadata and can be useful for filtering, sorting, and grouping reports across multiple Azure resources, but they are not required.
When you are finished configuring the Application Insights service, select the "Review + create" tab, as shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 9
If you have made any errors or omitted required information, this tab will tell you. Correct those errors and return to this tab. Click the [Create] button to create the Azure Application Insights service.
After a few minutes, you can navigate to the services and view or modify its properties, as shown in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10
The Instrumentation Key and Connection String are important pieces of information that other applications will use to connect to this service. Copy them and keep them safe.
In this article, I showed you how to create an Azure Application Insights service that is not associated with any Azure resource.
Azure can host a web application as an App Service that serves up a web site or web service in a highly scalable, highly reliable way.
To create a new Azure Web App, navigate to the Azure portal and click the [Create a resource] button (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1
If the [Create Web App] button (Fig. 2) displays, click the "Create" link below. it.
Fig. 2
If you do not see the [Create Web App] button, use the search box (Fig. 3) to search for a web app.
Fig. 3
From the search results, find the "Web App" panel (Fig. 4); then expand the dropdown at the bottom and click the [Web App] button, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Either of the above methods will display the "Create Web App" dialog with the "Basic" tab selected, as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6
At the "Subscription" dropdown, select the subscription into which you want to create the web app. Most of you will have only one subscription.
At the "Resource group" field, select an existing resource group that will contain your new web app or click "Create new" to create a new resource group.
At the "Name" field, enter a unique name for your web app. By default the default URL will be the text you enter here, followedby ".azurewebstites.net".
At the "Publish" field, select whether you want to create a dynamic web application ("Code"), a web app stored in a Docker container, or a static web site.
At the "Runtime stack" field, select from the available languages and platforms supported by Azure App Services, as shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 7
At the "Operating System" field, select the operating system ("Linux" or "Windows") on which you want your application to run.
At the "Region" field, select the region in which to deploy this Web App. When selecting a region, consider the location of your users and of any resources on which the app depends. You want to minimize latency by keeping things close to one another, if possible.
At the "Windows Plan" field, select an existing Application Plan or click "Create new" to create a new plan. The plan determines the size of machines on which the app will run.
If you create a new Windows Plan, the "Pricing plan" field prompts you to select the machine size, as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8
At the "Zone Redundancy" field, select whether you want Azure to create multiple copies of your web app to support failover.
The fields on the "Basic" tab are the only ones required. However you can select any of the four other tabs (Deployment, Networking, Monitoring, and Tags) and configure settings contained therein.
The "Deployment" tab (Fig. 9) allows you to configure a GitHub source code repository from which you can deploy code to this web app.
Fig. 9
On the "Networking" tab (Fig. 10), you can enable or disable access to the web app from the public Internet and be part of a virtual network.
Fig. 10
The "Monitoring" tab (Fig. 11) allows you to enable and configure Application Insights so that events can be logged and analyzed later.
Fig. 11
On the "Tags" tab (Fig. 12), you can add name value pairs to the Web App. This is useful when grouping, filtering, and sorting on reports about Azure assets.
Fig. 12
After you have configured everything to your liking, navigate to the "Review + create" tab (Fig. 13).
Fig. 13
If anything is missing or incorrect, an error will display and you will have the opportunity to correct it. Click the [Create] button to create the Web App.
After a short time, the Web App is created and provisioned. Fig. 14 shows the "Overview" tab of a web app.
Fig. 14
Click the "Default domain" link (Fig. 15) to display the default home page created by Azure, as shown in Fig. 16.
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
In this article, I showed you how to create an Azure Web Application.
Azure Application Insights collects a lot of information about the performance of an Azure Service - but only if you turn it on.
Enabling Application Insights for a Virtual Machine (VM) is a simple step when creating the Virtual Machine.
When you create a new Virtual Machine in the Azure Portal, you are presented with a tabbed dialog. The "Monitoring" tab is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
By default, Boot Diagnostics is enabled, and logs are stored in a storage account managed by Microsoft. Boot Diagnostics help you troubleshoot issues that occur during the boot process - sometimes preventing the VM from booting up. You can choose to store these logs in your own storage account, or you can disable this entirely.
You can log even more information by checking the "Enable OS guest diagnostics" checkbox and selecting a storage account in which to save these log entries. This provides data every minute about the health of the VM.
Check the "Enable recommended alert rule" checkbox to enable alerts when a metric is outside a normal range. Checking this checkbox displays the "Recommended alert rules" dialog, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
Here you can specify the thresholds that trigger an alert and the action to fire when a threshold is reached. You can expand each category to configure more information about the alert. For example, Fig. 3 shows the "Percentage CPU" alert expanded.
Fig. 3
You can also enable and configure Application Insights after creating a Virtual Machine.
To do so, navigate to the VM and select the "Insights" button under the "Monitoring" section in the left menu, as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4
If you did not enable Application Insights when creating the VM, the dialog shown in Fig. 5 displays.
Fig. 5
Click the [Enable] button to enable Application Insights for this VM. The "Monitoring configuration" dialog displays, as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6
Configure Application Insights, as desired and click the [Configure] button.
In this article, you learned how to enable and configure Azure Application Insights for an Azure Virtual Machine - when creating the VM and after the VM is created. In future articles, I will explain and demonstrate some of the features provided by Application Insights.
Application Insights is a set of tools within Azure Monitor. These tools allow you to view the performance of your application or service quickly and to review detailed information to determine the causes of an incident.
It works by collecting and reading metrics, telemetry data, and logs.
Using Application Insights, we can view application performance in real time, test for uptime, measure feature usage, and determine when a problem occurred.
There are two ways to enable Application Insights for a service or application. In many cases, you can simply turn on the feature when you create the service or after it is running. If the service does not support automatic collection of Application Insights data, you can use an SDK to add code to your application that logs data.
For Azure App Services and Azure Functions on Windows running .NET code, Application Insights is on by default and enabled automatically.
See Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/app/codeless-overview#supported-environments-languages-and-resource-providers
Note: For scenarios that are not supported, you can write code to log Application Insights data.
You can explicitly turn on or off Application Insights and configure its settings when you create a new Web App in the Azure Portal by selecting the "Monitoring" blade, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
If you change your mind after creating an App Service, you can still enable Application Insights later. Within the App Service, click the [Application Insights] button under the "Settings" section of the left menu, as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3
Fig. 4 shows the "Application Insights" blade for an App Service in which Application Insights is not enabled.
Fig. 4
Click the [Turn on Application Insights] button to display the "Application Insights" dialog, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5
Here you can enable Application Insights and configure it how you desire.
In this article, I showed how to enable Application Insights for an App Service. In future articles, I will explain and demonstrate some of the features provided by Application Insights.
Episode 757
Dolly Desir on Application Monitoring
Datadog engineer Dolly Desir explains the principles and advantages of monitoring and logging an application.
Links:
"Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon" is the brainchild of actor/writer/musician Matthew Yee. Yee wrote the script and stars as the title character Charlie.
The story chronicles a few days in the life of Lucy and Charlie, self-described "First Generation Asian American Renegades," who married two weeks after they met. Charlie fell in love with Lucy when she punched a bride during a bachelorette party. The day after the wedding, the couple decide to rob a gas station. The first problem occurs because they are terrible bank robbers (Charlie gets brain freeze from drinking a Slurpee too fast, and the surveillance video goes viral on Tik Tok. The second problem happens when they try to rescue Bao - an illegal immigrant forced into indenture by a heartless mobster.
The actors break out their instruments every few minutes and burst into song to advance the plot or show their emotion. The music is primarily country and western, with some folk, rock, and rockabilly thrown in for good measure.
This play is mostly a farcical comedy but also contains tragic and poignant moments. It forced us to think about illegal immigration, the role of police, human trafficking, and the family unit.
"Lucy and Charlie's Honeymoon" is a fun, wild ride with excitement, humor, and great music.
Being a successful session musician and touring musician in others' bands will build your reputation in the music industry, but it is unlikely to sell albums or sell out concert venues.
This is the challenge that Nik West faces. She has performed with every musician, from Prince to Steven Tyler to John Mayer. She is in high demand among other musicians. But she has had limited commercial success as a solo artist. Wednesday night at City Winery in Chicago's West Loop, West delivered an excellent performance for two hours in front of an audience that barely half-filled the hall.
The sparse crowd did not dampen her enthusiasm. For two hours, she entertained with singing, musicianship, and dancing. She has a fine voice, but her special talent is the bass guitar, which she showed off repeatedly. The music ranged from R&B to rock to blues. But it was her bass-slapping funk music that drew the loudest cheers.
She mixed originals with covers of songs by Sly and the Family Stone ("Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin"), Tiny Turner ("Proud Mary"), and Prince ("Kiss"). She told the story of Prince inviting her to jam at his Paisley Park studio, where he encouraged her and her talent.
Four others joined Nik on stage, including a frenetic drummer and a keyboardist, who made his instrument sound like a horn section.
Together, they played a funky set for almost two hours. The crowd did not get bigger, but they left happy.
Monitoring an application or service is essential to keeping it running smoothly and continuously improving it.
It is useful to understand some of the ways that we can monitor our app. Some important concepts are metrics, logs, traces, and spans.
Metrics are numerical values that describe some aspect of a system at a particular point in time. They are lightweight and capable of supporting near real-time scenarios. Examples include the amount of memory or storage used, disk access time, and response time. The purpose of a metric is to inform a user about the health and operation of the system at a point in time. These metrics, such as the average CPU usage each hour, can be pre-aggregated. Metrics tend to be lightweight, so they can be reported and stored quickly and are often collected regularly. They are ideal for use in simple logic, such as sending an email when the temperature of a machine exceeds a dangerous level.
Logs store events and activities. Log entries can contain different kinds of data organized into records with different sets of properties for each type. These records tend to be well-structured and verbose but are usually much larger than metrics data because they contain more detailed information. Logs are not pre-aggregated. You would use querying, reporting, and other tools to perform aggregations. Telemetry, such as events and traces, are stored as logs in addition to performance data to be combined for analysis. Log data comes from an application, its underlying service, the platform, or the operating system.
So, which one should we use? The answer is: both!
Use Metrics to determine the health of a system. When an unusual metric indicates a problem, query the logs to determine the reason for that problem.
A trace shows a continuous view of a single request in an application. Imagine a button on a web page that calls an API that calls a library that queries a database and returns the resulting data up the stack. If a user clicks the button, each component in the stack can log some information. Each log entry can contain a correlation ID to indicate they are all part of the same request. Filtering the logs on this correlation ID allows us to view details of the request as it moves through the system. Each component's log entries are known as a "span," while the collection of log entries for the entire request is a "trace." This trace will differ from when another user clicks the button (or if the same user clicks it later.) Each trace will have a different correlation ID, allowing us to distinguish one request from another. Storing the correlation ID is particularly helpful when isolating problems that occur sporadically. We can see if parameters are passed properly or if there are factors in one layer that contribute to the error.
In this article, I covered some key application and service monitoring concepts. In future articles, I will show tools for monitoring in Microsoft Azure.
GCast 152:
Transactable Containers Labs, Lab 2: Creating a CNAB Bundle
A walkthrough of Lab 2 of the Transactable Containers labs Learn how a Microsoft partner can create, package, and submit a Kubernetes application to the Azure marketplace
This video walks through Lab 2 in which you create a CNAB Bundle.
Links: https://microsoft.github.io/Mastering-the-Marketplace/container/#hands-on-labs
https://davidgiard.com/becoming-a-microsoft-partner
Like many software developers, I once thought of monitoring only after I had completed coding an application's functionality. Now, I see it as an essential part of the development process, allowing me to better maintain, improve, and troubleshoot my application.
Application monitoring is an important part of developing any software application or service. A well-monitored application allows you to discover and troubleshoot problems, improve system quality, maintain security, and manage complexity.
Let's talk about some of those advantages.
By keeping track of important measurables, we can determine when those measurables fall outside of an acceptable range. This aberration often indicates a fixable problem. For example, if memory or CPU usage spikes unexpectedly, it may suggest that we need to scale up or scale out our service.
Once we discover a problem, it can be difficult to find the root of that problem. An effective way to learn more is by reviewing logs recorded when the problem occurred.
Cost is an important consideration for any business. Monitoring costs for hosted applications and services can help us decide whether we are using resources effectively. Most hosts provide information on costs, broken down by services and time.
Analyze system proactively
Who is using which parts of the system? We may discover that certain features are rarely used. With this information, we can raise the visibility of these parts, deprecate them, or make them more attractive. The point is: we should make these decisions based on real data.
How much resource is the system using? Are any services consuming excess memory or CPU? Are any services slow to respond? Knowing where these bottlenecks exist can help us focus our energy and improve the system's performance.
By monitoring for suspicious activity, you can detect threats to your application from outside or inside your organization.
We cannot hold all the applications and interdependencies in our heads. Monitoring helps us manage that complexity by saving information about the activity.
Some industries require certain information to be logged and retained for a given time. A monitoring solution helps meet these legal obligations.
In this article, I explained some of the advantages of maintaining effective monitoring for your service or application. In future articles, I will show you how to implement monitoring using the tools provided by Microsoft Azure.
Leigh Bardugo's debut novel "Shadow and Bone" ended with heroes Alina and Mal escaping from the evil Darkling to begin a new life across the sea. "Siege and Storm" continues the story. The Darkling tracks down the couple and hires a crew of privateers to ship them back to his homeland. But the privateers' leader is not who or what he seems and soon everyone's plans are thrown into chaos.
"Siege" expands on the characters and relationships of the first novel and introduces some interesting new characters - most notably Prince Nicolai. Nicolai is a charming rogue, who is second in line for the throne but is far more qualified to lead his country than his older brother or his parents. Alina's character evolves as her super power - the ability to generate massive amounts of light and heat - increases. Sadly, the Darkling has also gained new powers following his defeat in volume 1.
This book also introduces a love triangle or quadrangle with Alina at the center. Readers will have their opinions of which suitor is best for her.
This second book in the trilogy tells a more cohesive story than the first. But like many middle chapters, it leaves the tale unfinished, encouraging the reader to proceed to the third and final volume. That is what I will do.
Episode 756
Tim Banks on the Solace of You
In a recent conversation with Dell Developer Advocate and Jiu Jitsu champion Tim Banks, we talked about everything from self-advocacy to mental health to challenges of underrepresented people in the tech industry to how we need to develop our life outside of work.