Azure App Insights: Ignoring Specific URLs Across the Entire Tenant – A Step-by-Step Guide

Configuring Azure App Insights to Ignore Specific URLs

The process of ignoring specific URLs in Azure App Insights involves creating a telemetry processor in the Application Insights resource. This processor will filter out the unwanted URLs, ensuring they don’t clutter your dashboard.

Step 1: Create a Telemetry Processor

Follow these steps to create a telemetry processor in Azure App Insights:

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to your Application Insights resource.
2. Click on Configuration and then select Telemetry processors.
3. Click on New telemetry processor.
4. Choose Custom telemetry processor and click Create.

  Name: Ignore Specific URLs
  Description: Filter out unwanted URLs from telemetry data

Step 2: Define the Telemetry Processor Configuration

In the telemetry processor configuration, you’ll define the rules for ignoring specific URLs. You can do this using Azure App Insights’ built-in functionality or write custom code.

For this example, we’ll use the built-in functionality.

  {
    "name": "Ignore Specific URLs",
    "type": "filter",
    "enabled": true,
    "configuration": {
      "rules": [
        {
          "match": "url",
          "contains": "/healthcheck",
          "action": "ignore"
        },
        {
          "match": "url",
          "contains": "/robots.txt",
          "action": "ignore"
        }
      ]
    }
  }

In this example, we’re defining two rules:

• The first rule ignores any URL containing “/healthcheck” in the path.
• The second rule ignores any URL containing “/robots.txt” in the path.

You can add as many rules as needed to ignore specific URLs.

Step 3: Save and Apply the Telemetry Processor

Once you’ve defined the telemetry processor configuration, save and apply the changes:

1. Click Save to save the telemetry processor configuration.
2. Click Apply to apply the changes to your Application Insights resource.

Verifying the Configuration

To verify that the telemetry processor is working correctly:

1. Send traffic to one of the ignored URLs (e.g., https://example.com/healthcheck).
2. In the Azure portal, navigate to your Application Insights resource.
3. Click on Metrics and then select a metric (e.g., Requests).
4. Verify that the ignored URL is not present in the metric data.

Advanced Configuration Options

If you need more granular control over URL filtering, you can write custom code using Azure App Insights’ SDK.

  using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Channel;
  using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility;

  public class IgnoreSpecificUrlsTelemetryProcessor : ITelemetryProcessor
  {
    private readonly ITelemetryProcessor next;

    public IgnoreSpecificUrlsTelemetryProcessor(ITelemetryProcessor next)
    {
      this.next = next;
    }

    public void Process(ITelemetry item)
    {
      var request = item as RequestTelemetry;
      if (request != null)
      {
        var url = request.Url.AbsolutePath;
        if (url.Contains("/healthcheck") || url.Contains("/robots.txt"))
        {
          return; // Ignore the URL
        }
      }
      this.next.Process(item);
    }
  }

In this example, we’re creating a custom telemetry processor in C# that ignores URLs containing “/healthcheck” or “/robots.txt” in the path.

Conclusion

Azure App Insights provides a powerful way to analyze your application’s performance and behavior. By configuring a telemetry processor to ignore specific URLs, you can focus on the metrics that truly matter to your business. Follow the steps outlined in this article to create a custom telemetry processor that filters out unwanted URLs, ensuring a more accurate and streamlined analysis experience.

By following this guide, you’ll be able to:

• Reduce noise in your Azure App Insights dashboard
• Focus on business-critical metrics
• Improve data quality and accuracy

Remember to customize the telemetry processor configuration to fit your specific needs and requirements.

Happy analyzing!

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