Azure Application Insights CI/CD Enrichment

As part of getting the API “match fit” prior to deployment I explored the various options for logging, auditing and telemetry to provide feedback in relation to production diagnosis and application usage (API focus here). This is part 1 which covers the enrichment of the deployment pipelines using the Azure Application Insights.

Release Annotations

Release annotations allow the Azure DevOps Release pipeline to annotate the release number to Azure Application Insights metric charts to give a clear indication of when a new build was deployed. This is of particular use when checking whether a recent release has had an effect on performance.

Install and Configure

Incredibly easy to slot this into your existing Release pipeline. Simply sign in to Azure DevOps then visit the Visual Studio Marketplace to get the Release Annotations Extension and hit the Install button.

You’ll then need to Create an API key via your Application Insights resource. Copy the key then navigate back to Azure Devops. Add Task and select the Application Insights Release Annotation task and paste the API key into a new Variable. Full instructions here

Once you’re set the next time you create a release this is reflected in the relevant Application Insights charts.

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