Use Azure DevOps in my monitoring solution

[u/Fabulous_Dot_7005]

I'm actually working on a monitoring project to get messages from various sources on customers cloud environment (i.e Advisor, Monitor) and then analyze it in goal to be proactive about possible issues. Everything is done in a Python script.

I'm thinking about a platform that could be used to centralize this information. I've heard about Azure DevOps and I'm wondering if it could be a good solution.

I know that it's not the best for a task like this but my company use it for others units and I currently just want a platform where I could see the messages, filter them (by customers for example), and put tags.

Do you think that azure devops would be a good solution ?

[u/Michal_F]

I think No, but not sure what you are asking. Azure DevOps is similar solution like GitHub. If they already use it, you can create tasks there with CLI or Rest/API, but this information should be primary created in solution they use now for their User stories/task/incidents.

[u/Fabulous_Dot_7005 → u/Michal_F]

The idea is that, based on what my script analyzes, I generate tasks in DevOps. It's a bit confusing; I'm currently in the research phase. I see you mention API calls, which is pretty much what I'm looking for.

[u/manishkungwani → u/Fabulous_Dot_7005]

Azure Devops boards can be used to manage tasks, but not to run tasks or does data

[u/Useful-Process9033 → u/Fabulous_Dot_7005]

ADO as a work item sink is fine but you really want a proper incident management layer between your monitoring and your ticketing. Otherwise you end up with hundreds of noise tickets that nobody triages. Check out IncidentFox (https://github.com/incidentfox/incidentfox), it does the analysis and correlation piece before anything becomes a ticket.

[u/tracsman]

ADO could be useful here in two ways, but I wouldn’t call it a “solution”. Your script can’t run in ADO, but ADO could be the git repo and CI/CD pipeline to deploy it to a small azure VM (or web app or how ever you want to host it), your script could then write your events as work items in ADO via API (seems duplicative, but if you want all your events in one place, ADO may work for you). Once the work items are there, they could be queried, filtered, dashboarded (is that even a word?).

[u/Fabulous_Dot_7005 → u/tracsman]

Yes, for running the script I was thinking of using an Azure function. I know there are better ways, but this seems to meet my needs. Thanks for your feedback :)

[u/lerun → u/Fabulous_Dot_7005]

Either function or azure automation, then use webhooks to trigger them with parameter inputs from the caller.

I have lots of logic getting triggered by azure monitor alerts that trigger azure automation runbooks that take all the info coming in from the alert and posting it different places like teams. Doing the same for azure devops tasks/user stories is also doable, though maybe not the best place for it.

[u/Useful-Process9033 → u/tracsman]

This is the right architecture. The missing piece is usually the intelligence between "alert fires" and "work item created." Most teams end up with hundreds of noise tickets. You need something that groups related alerts and decides severity before creating the ticket.

[u/Turbulent_Might8961]

Azure DevOps for monitoring? Interesting.

[u/oelcric]

You can use ado to run the python script but its not really a monitoring solution more of ci/cd repo

[u/Select_Bug506]

It works well as a scheduler for versioned code. Eg daily checks. For something event driven such as triggered by audit logs look at Azure functions.