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New Relic Application Performance Management on Windows Azure

This guide describes how to add New Relic's world-class performance monitoring to your Windows Azure hosted applications. We'll cover the fast and simple process to add New Relic to your application and introduce you to some of New Relic's features. For more information about using New Relic, see Using New Relic.

What is New Relic?

New Relic is a developer focused tool that monitors your production applications and provides deep insight into their performance and reliability. It is designed to save you time when identifying and diagnosing performance issues, and it puts the information you need to solve these issues at your fingertips.

New Relic tracks the load time and throughput for your web transaction, both from the server and your users' browsers. It shows how much time you spend in the database, analyzes slow queries and web requests, provides uptime monitoring and alerting, tracks application exceptions, and a whole lot more.

New Relic special pricing through the Windows Azure Store

New Relic Standard is free to Windows Azure users New Relic Pro is offered in three packages

  • 1 host $50
  • 2 to 5 hosts $199
  • 6 to 10 hosts $349

For hosts counts greater than 10 please contact New Relic (sales@newrelic.com) for volume pricing.

Windows Azure customers receive a 2 week trial subscription of New Relic Pro when they deploy the New Relic agent.

Sign up for New Relic using the Windows Azure Store

New Relic integrates seamlessly with Windows Azure Web Roles and Worker roles.

To sign up for New Relic directly from the Windows Azure Store, follow these three easy steps.

Step 1. Sign up through the Windows Azure Store

  1. Log in to the Windows Azure Management Portal.
  2. In the lower pane of the management portal, click New.
  3. Click Store.
  4. In the Choose an Add-on dialog, select New Relic and click Next.
  5. In the Personalize Add-on dialog, select the New Relic plan that you want.
  6. Enter a promotion code, if applicable.
  7. Enter a name for how the New Relic service will appear in your Windows Azure settings, or use the default value NewRelic. This name must be unique in your list of subscribed Windows Azure Store items.
  8. Choose a value for the region; for example, West US.
  9. Click Next.
  10. In the Review Purchase dialog, review the plan and pricing information, and review the legal terms. If you agree to the terms, click Purchase.
  11. After you click Purchase, your New Relic account will begin the creation process. You can monitor the status in the Windows Azure management portal.
  12. To retrieve your New Relic license key, click Output Values.
  13. Copy the license key that appears. You will need to enter it when you install the New Relic Nuget package.

Step 2. Install the Nuget package

  1. Open your Visual Studio solution, or create a new one by selecting File > New > Project.

    Visual Studio

  2. If you don't already have a Windows Azure Cloud Service Project in your solution, add one by right-clicking your app in the Solution Explorer and selecting Add Windows Azure Cloud Service Project.

    Create cloud service

  3. Open the Package Manager console by selecting Tools > Library Package Manager > Package Manager Console. Set your project to be the Default Project at the top of the Package Manager Console window.

    Package manager console

  4. On the Package Manager command prompt, type Install-Package NewRelicWindowsAzure and press Enter.

    install in package manager

  5. At the license key prompt, enter the license key you received from the Windows Azure Store.

    enter license key

  6. Optional: At the application name prompt, enter your app's name as it will appear in New Relic's dashboard. Or, use your solution name as the default.

    enter application name

  7. From the Solution Explorer, right-click your Windows Azure Cloud Service Project, and select Publish.

    public the cloud project

Note: If this is your first time deploying this app to Windows Azure, you will be prompted to enter your Azure credentials. For more information, see Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application to a Windows Azure Web Site.

publish settings

Step 3. Check out your application's performance in New Relic.

To view your New Relic dashboard:

  1. From the Windows Azure portal, click the Manage button.
  2. Sign in with your New Relic account email and password.

  3. From the New Relic menu bar, select Applications > (application's name).

    The Monitoring > Overview dashboard automatically appears.

    New Relic monitoring dashboard

    After you select an app from the list on your Applications menu, the Overview dashboard shows current app server and browser information.

Using New Relic

After you select your app from the list on the Applications menu, the Overview dashboard shows current app server and browser information. To toggle between the two views, click the App server or Browser button.

In addition to the standard New Relic UI and dashboard drill-down functions, the Applications Overview dashboard has additional functions.

If you want to...Do this...
Show dashboard information for the selected app's server or browser Click theApp ServerorBrowserbutton.
View threshold levels for your app's Apdex score Point to the Apdex score?icon.
View worldwide Apdex details From the Overview's Browserview, point anywhere on the Global Apdex map.
Tip: To go directly to the selected app's Geographydashboard, click theGlobal Apdex title, or click anywhere on the Global Apdex map.
View the Web Transactions dashboard Click the Web Transactions table on the Applications Overview dashboard. Or, to view details about a specific web transaction (including Key Transactions), click its name.
View the Errors dashboard Click the Error rate chart's title on the Applications Overview dashboard.
Tip: You can also view the Errors dashboard fromApplications > (your app) > Events > Errors.
View the app's server details

Do any of the following:

  • Toggle between a table view of the hosts or breakout metric details of each host.
  • Click an individual server's name.
  • Point to an individual server's Apdex score.
  • Click an individual server's CPU usage or Memory.

Below is an example of the Applications Overview dashboard when you select the Browser view.

Package manager console

Next steps

Check out these additional resources for more information:

  • Installing the .NET Agent on Azure: New Relic .NET Agent installation procedures
  • The New Relic User Interface: Overview of the New Relic UI, setting user rights and profiles, using standard functions and dashboard drill-down details
  • Applications Overview: Features and functions when using New Relic's Applications Overview dashboard
  • Apdex: Overview of how Apdex measures end users' satisfaction with your application
  • Real User Monitoring: Overview of how RUM details the time it takes for your users' browsers to load your webpages, where they come from, and what browsers they use
  • Finding Help: Resources available through New Relic's online Help Center
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