While testing the performance characteristics of the SQL Azure backup tool I am building (called Enzo Backup for SQL Azure), I decided to try Spotlight (R) on Azure in order to obtain specific performance metrics from a virtual machine (VM) running on Microsoft's data center. Indeed, my backup solution comes with a cloud agent (running as a worker role in Azure) that performs backup and restore operations entirely in the cloud. Due to the nature of this application, I needed to have an understanding of possible memory and CPU pressures.
As of today, very few techniques are available to capture VM's performance metrics in Microsoft Azure. One thing you can do is to configure your application to send Diagnostics data to Azure Tables and Blobs; however this requires a lot of work when comes time to parse the information. I had previously tried the Azure Management Pack of System Center. While the Management Pack was indeed powerful, it was difficult to install and came with a very limited number of metrics by default, making it more difficult for a small organization like mine to customize and fully leverage. System Center's capabilities with Azure will grow over time and will most likely appeal to larger organizations.
When it comes to small companies with few operational capabilities, Spotlight (R) on Azure delivers (from Quest). The installation is extremely simple and the tool comes with many metrics out of box. In my tests, I was able to obtain a quick read on my virtual machine and review performance graphs showing CPU Utilization, CPU Queue Length, Memory Utilization and Network Traffic. The tool shows by default the last 15 minutes or data, which is very handy. If you have a large farm of virtual machines, you can also view metrics rolled up across your virtual machines. Finally the tool allows you to declare Alerts if you cross performance thresholds (the thresholds values can be changed to your needs).