Intro: Azure Monitor is Microsoft’s unified monitoring solution for collecting metrics, logs, and insights across your Azure resources. To configure it properly, you typically follow these stages:
1. Prepare Your Azure Environment
From the Azure Portal:
Search Resource Groups
Select Create
Name it rg-alpha
Region: East US
Click Review + Create → Create
note: This group will hold all the resources Azure Monitor will observe.
**2. Create a Security Group (Optional but used in the **lab)
This group is used for log access permissions.
- Search *Azure Active Directory / Entra ID
*
Go to Groups → New Group
Group type: Security
Name:** App Log Examiners**
Create the group
3. Deploy Virtual Machines to Monitor
Azure Monitor needs resources to collect data from. The lab deploys two VMs:
A. Deploy Windows VM (WS‑VM1)
- Search Virtual Machines → Create
- Name: WS-VM1
- Region: East US
- Image: Windows Server 2022 Datacenter
- Size: Standard_D4s_v3
- Admin user:** prime**
- Password: (your secure password)
- Allow inbound port: RDP 3389
- Create the VM
Configure Networking
- Wait for the deployment to complete. Once deployment completes choose Go to resource.
On the WS-VM1 properties page, choose Networking.
On the Networking page, select the RDP rule.
On the RDP rule space, change the Source to My IP address and choose Save. This restricts incoming RDP connections to the IP address you’re currently using.
On the Networking page, choose Add inbound port rule.
On the Add inbound security rule page, configure the following settings and choose Add:
Source:** Any**
Source: **** *
Destination: Any
Service: HTTP
Action: Allow
Priority: 310
Name: AllowAnyHTTPInbound
On the WS-VM1 page, choose Connect.
Under Native RDP, choose Select.
On the Native RDP page, choose Download RDP file
and then open the file. Opening the RDP file opens the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box
On the Windows Security **dialog box, choose **More Choices and then choose Use a different account.
Enter the username as .\prime and the password as the secure password you chose in Step 3, and choose OK
When signed into the Windows Server virtual machine, right-click on the Start hint and then choose Windows PowerShell (Admin).
At the elevated command prompt, type the following command and press Enter. Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools
When the installation completes run the following command to change to the web server root directory. cd c:\inetpub\wwwroot\
Run the following command. Wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure-Samples/html-docs-hello-world/master/index.html -OutFile index.html
When signed into the Windows Server virtual machine, right-click on the Start hint and then choose Windows PowerShell (Admin).
At the elevated command prompt, type the following command and press Enter. Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools
At the elevated command prompt, type the following command and press Enter. Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature -IncludeManagementTools
When the installation completes run the following command to change to the web server root directory. cd c:\inetpub\wwwroot\
4. Deploy a Linux VM (Linux‑VM2)
Create the VM
Name: Linux-VM2
Resource Group: rg-alpha
Availability options: No infrastructure redundancy required
Image: Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS
Size: Standard_D2s_v3
VM architecture: x64
Username: prime, Password: (your secure password)
- Review the information and choose Create.
Add Monitoring Extension
After the VM deploys, open the VM properties page and choose Extensions + Applications under Settings
Choose Add and select the Network Watcher Agent for Linux. Choose Next and then choose Review and Create. Choose Create.
Deploy a web app with an SQL Database
In your browser, open a new browser tab and navigate to https://github.com/Azure/azure-quickstart-templates/tree/master/quickstarts/microsoft.web/web-app-sql-database
On the GitHub page, choose Deploy to Azure.
A new tab opens. If necessary, re-sign into Azure with the account that has Global Administrator privileges.
On the Basics page, select Edit template.
In the template editor, delete the contents of lines 158 to 174 inclusive and delete the “,” on line 157. Choose Save.
On the Basics page, provide the following information and choose Next.
Subscription: Your subscription
Resource Group: rg-alpha
Region: East US
Sku Name: F1
Sku Capacity: 1
Sql Administrator Login: prime
Sql Administrator Login Password : [Select a unique secure password] P@ssw0rdP@ssw0rdReview the information presented and select Create.
Review the information presented and select Create
After the deployment completes, choose Go to resource group.