Enable Insights to monitor Azure Virtual Desktop

  • Article

Azure Virtual Desktop Insights is a dashboard built on Azure Monitor Workbooks that helps IT professionals understand their Azure Virtual Desktop environments. This topic will walk you through how to set up Azure Virtual Desktop Insights to monitor your Azure Virtual Desktop environments.

Important

The Log Analytics Agent is currently being deprecated. If you use the Log Analytics Agent, you'll eventually need to migrate to the Azure Monitor Agent by August 31, 2024.

Prerequisites

Before you start using Azure Virtual Desktop Insights, you'll need to set up the following things:

  • All Azure Virtual Desktop environments you monitor must be based on the latest release of Azure Virtual Desktop that’s compatible with Azure Resource Manager.

  • At least one configured Log Analytics Workspace. Use a designated Log Analytics workspace for your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts to ensure that performance counters and events are only collected from session hosts in your Azure Virtual Desktop deployment.

  • Enable data collection for the following things in your Log Analytics workspace:

    • Diagnostics from your Azure Virtual Desktop environment
    • Recommended performance counters from your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts
    • Recommended Windows Event Logs from your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts

    The data setup process described in this article is the only one you'll need to monitor Azure Virtual Desktop. You can disable all other items sending data to your Log Analytics workspace to save costs.

  • Anyone monitoring Azure Virtual Desktop Insights for your environment will also need to have the following Azure role-based access control (RBAC) roles assigned as a minimum:

    You can also create a custom role to reduce the scope of assignment on the Log Analytics workspace. For more information, see Manage access to Log Analytics workspaces.

    Note

    Read access only lets admins view data. They'll need different permissions to manage resources in the Azure Virtual Desktop portal.

Log Analytics settings

To start using Azure Virtual Desktop Insights, you'll need at least one Log Analytics workspace. Use a designated Log Analytics workspace for your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts to ensure that performance counters and events are only collected from session hosts in your Azure Virtual Desktop deployment. If you already have a workspace set up, skip ahead to Set up the configuration workbook. To set one up, see Create a Log Analytics workspace in the Azure portal.

Note

Standard data storage charges for Log Analytics will apply. To start, we recommend you choose the pay-as-you-go model and adjust as you scale your deployment and take in more data. To learn more, see Azure Monitor pricing.

Set up the configuration workbook

If it's your first time opening Azure Virtual Desktop Insights, you'll need to set up Azure Virtual Desktop Insights for your Azure Virtual Desktop environment. To configure your resources:

  1. Open Azure Virtual Desktop Insights in the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.cn/#view/Microsoft_Azure_WVD/WvdManagerMenuBlade/~/insights.
  2. Select Workbooks, then select Check Configuration.
  3. Select an Azure Virtual Desktop environment to configure from the drop-down lists for Subscription, Resource Group, and Host Pool.

The configuration workbook sets up your monitoring environment and lets you check the configuration after you've finished the setup process. It's important to check your configuration if items in the dashboard aren't displaying correctly, or when the product group publishes updates that require new settings.

Resource diagnostic settings

To collect information on your Azure Virtual Desktop infrastructure, you'll need to enable several diagnostic settings on your Azure Virtual Desktop host pools and workspaces (this is your Azure Virtual Desktop workspace, not your Log Analytics workspace). To learn more about host pools, workspaces, and other Azure Virtual Desktop resource objects, see our environment guide.

You can learn more about Azure Virtual Desktop diagnostics and the supported diagnostic tables at Send Azure Virtual Desktop diagnostics to Log Analytics.

To set your resource diagnostic settings in the configuration workbook:

  1. Select the Resource diagnostic settings tab in the configuration workbook.
  2. Select Log Analytics workspace to send Azure Virtual Desktop diagnostics.

Host pool diagnostic settings

To set up host pool diagnostics using the resource diagnostic settings section in the configuration workbook:

  1. Under Host pool, check to see whether Azure Virtual Desktop diagnostics are enabled. If they aren't, an error message will appear that says "No existing diagnostic configuration was found for the selected host pool." You'll need to enable the following supported diagnostic tables:

    • Management Activities
    • Feed
    • Connections
    • Errors
    • Checkpoints
    • HostRegistration
    • AgentHealthStatus

    Note

    If you don't see the error message, you don't need to do steps 2 through 4.

  2. Select Configure host pool.

  3. Select Deploy.

  4. Refresh the configuration workbook.

Workspace diagnostic settings

To set up workspace diagnostics using the resource diagnostic settings section in the configuration workbook:

  1. Under Workspace, check to see whether Azure Virtual Desktop diagnostics are enabled for the Azure Virtual Desktop workspace. If they aren't, an error message will appear that says "No existing diagnostic configuration was found for the selected workspace." You'll need to enable the following supported diagnostics tables:

    • Management Activities
    • Feed
    • Errors
    • Checkpoints

    Note

    If you don't see the error message, you don't need to do steps 2-4.

  2. Select Configure workspace.

  3. Select Deploy.

  4. Refresh the configuration workbook.

Session host data settings

You can use either the Azure Monitor Agent or the Log Analytics agent to collect information on your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts. We recommend you use the Azure Monitor Agent as the Log Analytics Agent will be deprecated on August 31st, 2024. Select the relevant tab for your scenario.

To collect information on your Azure Virtual Desktop session hosts, you must configure a Data Collection Rule (DCR) to collect performance data and Windows Event Logs, associate the session hosts with the DCR, install the Azure Monitor Agent on all session hosts in host pools you're collecting data from, and ensure the session hosts are sending data to a Log Analytics workspace.

The Log Analytics workspace you send session host data to doesn't have to be the same one you send diagnostic data to.

To configure a DCR and select a Log Analytics workspace destination using the configuration workbook:

  1. From the Azure Virtual Desktop overview page, select Host pools, then select the pooled host pool you want to monitor.

  2. From the host pool overview page, select Insights, then select Open Configuration Workbook.

  3. Select the Session host data settings tab in the configuration workbook.

  4. For Workspace destination, select the Log Analytics workspace you want to send session host data to.

  5. For DCR resource group, select the resource group in which you want to create the DCR.

  6. Select Create data collection rule to automatically configure the DCR using the configuration workbook. This option only appears once you've selected a workspace destination and a DCR resource group.

Session hosts

You need to install the Azure Monitor Agent on all session hosts in the host pool and send data from those hosts to your selected Log Analytics workspace. If the session hosts don't all meet the requirements, you'll see a Session hosts section at the top of Session host data settings with the message Some hosts in the host pool are not sending data to the selected Log Analytics workspace.

Note

If you don't see the Session hosts section or error message, all session hosts are set up correctly. Automated deployment is limited to 1000 session hosts or fewer.

To set up your remaining session hosts using the configuration workbook:

  1. Select the DCR you're using for data collection.

  2. Select Deploy association to create the DCR association.

  3. Select Add extension to deploy the Azure Monitor Agent to all the session hosts in the host pool.

  4. Select Add system managed identity to configure the required managed identity.

  5. Once the agent has installed and the managed identity has been added, refresh the configuration workbook.

Note

For larger host pools (over 1,000 session hosts) or if you encounter deployment issues, we recommend you install the Azure Monitor Agent when you create a session host by using an Azure Resource Manager template.

Optional: configure alerts

Azure Virtual Desktop Insights allows you to monitor Azure Monitor alerts happening within your selected subscription in the context of your Azure Virtual Desktop data. Azure Monitor alerts are an optional feature on your Azure subscriptions, and you need to set them up separately from Azure Virtual Desktop Insights. You can use the Azure Monitor alerts framework to set custom alerts on Azure Virtual Desktop events, diagnostics, and resources. To learn more about Azure Monitor alerts, see Azure Monitor Log Alerts.

Diagnostic and usage data

Azure automatically collects usage and performance data through your use of the Azure Virtual Desktop Insights service. Azure uses this data to improve the quality, security, and integrity of the service.

To provide accurate and efficient troubleshooting capabilities, the collected data includes the portal session ID, Microsoft Entra user ID, and the name of the portal tab where the event occurred. Azure doesn't collect names, addresses, or other contact information.

For more information about data collection and usage, see the Azure Online Services Privacy Statement.

Note

To learn about viewing or deleting your personal data collected by the service, see Azure Data Subject Requests for the GDPR. For more information about GDPR, see the GDPR section of the Service Trust portal.

Next steps

Now that you’ve configured Azure Virtual Desktop Insights for your Azure Virtual Desktop environment, here are some resources that might help you start monitoring your environment: