Focusing on User Experience Network Monitoring with AppNeta and Azure Monitor

Cloud-based networking has become a core pillar of Microsoft’s core infrastructure. Here at Microsoft Digital (MSD), Microsoft’s internal IT organization, our unwavering commitment to an exceptional user experience for our employees has led us to transform how we monitor our network.

We’re transitioning from traditional network performance monitoring to a powerful integration between AppNeta by Broadcom Software and Azure Monitor. This strategic shift allows us to focus on what truly matters—the user experience we offer our employees.

As our networking infrastructure has evolved to embrace and depend upon cloud services, so have the expectations of our employees. Our network extends across thousands of on-premises and cloud resources and stretches to 160 countries across the world.

[Explore the rest of our series on moving our network to the cloud.]

Our network monitoring must always answer the important questions for our business and the Microsoft employees that drive that business. Our organization’s needs come from diverse perspectives and use-case scenarios, and they include essential questions our monitoring must answer, including:

“How do I understand and optimize the performance of my resources?”

“Are my resources available and redundant?”

“Can I diagnose problems end-to-end?”

“Does network configuration comply with security policies and ensure it’s in the desired state?”

“How can I use data to predict behavior and outcomes?”

“How is the network experience impacted after a change is implemented?”

In all these questions, lie answers that revolve around our employees’ user experience. What are the people who use our network infrastructure experiencing, and how can we better measure and improve that experience?

Garrison and Dietrich appear in corporate photos that have been merged into a composite image. — Beth Garrison and Josh Dietrich are part of a team at Microsoft Digital that is transforming our employees’ user experience on our hybrid network with AppNeta and Azure Monitor.

We realized that conventional network performance monitoring—monitoring the systems and infrastructure that support our network—could only tell part of the story. To truly understand and meet our requirements, we needed to monitor user experiences directly. This understanding became the driving force behind our decision to embrace user-experience monitoring.

The lifecycle of our hybrid cloud networking environment dictates how we observe and measure the end-to-end experience in our network environment. Across our network environment, multiple factors impact the user experience.

Network resources must be healthy and available. Resources and network paths must meet performance requirements for throughput and latency. Network configuration must meet standards and be protected from configuration drift. Resources must be adequately inventoried and backed up.

The broader picture of network state must be integrated with related data to provide a holistic perspective of the user experience.

We use AppNeta by Broadcom Software to bridge our cloud monitoring capabilities into our on-premises corporate network and capture the end-to-end network experience for our employees, whether connected from home, a customer’s office, or one of our Microsoft office locations worldwide. AppNeta allows us to observe the entire corporate network experience and integrate that monitoring data with observations from Azure Monitor for our cloud networking environment.

We’re integrating the user experience across our office locations and on-premises network infrastructure into a global cloud network environment hosted in Azure. Our cloud network is at the core of connectivity for Microsoft, with our Azure-based VWAN connecting our entire global network.

This monitoring solution allows us to track and analyze various user-centric metrics precisely, from application responsiveness to service availability and beyond. We can proactively identify potential issues before they impact our users, take targeted actions, and optimize the user experience to ensure seamless interactions between our users and services.

We currently monitor more than 500 network-specific Azure resources, including Virtual Networks, Azure Firewalls, IP groupings, ExpressRoute circuits, ExpressRoute Gateways, VPN Gateways, Azure VWAN Hubs, and Azure VWAN Global Reach.

Across these cloud resources and into on-premises resources using integration with AppNeta, we’re tracking almost 50 parameters—native and synthetic—including simple metrics such as throughput, CPU utilization, packet loss, and latency. These parameters also include more complex and holistic measures such as the provisioning state of resources, resource status, data path availability, configuration drift, and rule changes.

These metrics are combined using dashboards and workbooks in Azure Monitor, creating a hop-by-hop measure of visibility, performance, configuration, resiliency, and interoperability for user experiences.

By integrating AppNeta with Azure Monitor, we’re creating a holistic view of the end-to-end user experience. AppNeta’s on-premises monitoring capabilities, combined with Azure Monitor’s rich telemetry data and reporting, allow us to comprehensively understand how our users interact with our services.

Our transition to user-experience monitoring has created numerous benefits. Prioritizing our users’ needs results in more satisfied and empowered employees. Real-time insights into user interactions allow us to address issues promptly, leading to reduced downtime and improved service reliability. Our focus on user experience strengthens our relationship with the employees we support and positions us as an employee-centric organization.

Our journey to network monitoring in the cloud is ongoing and ever evolving. The integration between AppNeta and Azure Monitor sets the stage for continuous growth and improvement for our network environment and organization.

We’re currently working on building self-healing capabilities into our monitoring solution using Azure-based automation tools. We’re taking a more proactive approach to the health of our network, and automation ensures that self-healing capabilities can be deployed consistently and efficiently across the entire network.

We’re also moving toward Azure Data Lake for data lake and data lakehouse capabilities, increasing the flexibility of our reporting and dashboarding while ensuring adequate performance for the monitoring solution as demand and workload increase.

Our transition from traditional network performance monitoring to integrated user-experience monitoring with AppNeta and Azure Monitor represents our dedication to user satisfaction. By directly understanding our employees’ experiences, we can exceed their expectations and ensure seamless interaction with our services.

In this transformative journey with AppNeta and Azure Monitor as our allies, we’re well-equipped to embrace a user-centric outlook where monitoring excellence translates into unparalleled user experiences. We’ll continue prioritizing user satisfaction as the driving force behind our monitoring strategy.

Here are some considerations for moving towards a more cloud-based, user-centric networking infrastructure.

Extend your global network with robust monitoring solutions. A robust monitoring solution like ours can effectively manage vast and diverse infrastructures.
Directly monitor user experiences for better network performance. The integration of AppNeta provides a comprehensive understanding of network performance and user interaction across various environments.
Proactively identify and resolve issues in your network. Using integrated monitoring tools enables you to detect potential issues before they impact users, enhancing service reliability and minimizing downtime.
Track comprehensive metrics for a holistic network understanding. By monitoring comprehensive metrics, you can gain a detailed and holistic view of your network’s performance, aiding in more informed decision-making.
Embrace future-oriented developments for your network management. Self-healing capabilities and Azure Data Lake adoption highlight the importance of continuous improvement and adapting to evolving network needs.
Adopt an employee-centric approach for organizational success. Prioritizing user experience strengthens your position as an employee-centric organization. Focusing on user satisfaction can lead to broader organizational success.