telemetry.md

Telemetry

Custom Script Extensions

The AKS Engine team has instrumented custom script extensions (CSEs) so collection of telemetry may be enabled. This instrumentation is used to collect aggregate, non-identifiable data to help us answer gather the following information:

• Timing metrics for various operations performed during CSE execution
• Metrics on failures encountered during CSE execution
• General product usage
  • kubernetes and component version usage
  • Node pool counts and VM Sku data
  • Which versions of VHDs are still in use

This data will be used to monitor the health of cluster deployments (including AKS clusters) that are deployed with AKS Engine as well as to help us prioritize future investments/feature work in the tool.

Configuration

Collection of all telemetry is currently disabled by default.

Telemetry can be enabled by setting the enableTelemetry feature flag to true in the apimodel.json. When enableTelemetry is set to true, telemetry will be sent to the AKS Engine Application Insights cluster.

Telemetry can be routed to an additional Application Insights instance by specifying telemetryProfile.applicationInsightsKey with the value of the instrumentation key of your Application Insights instance.

That means you can see and use the same data that is being sent to the AKS Engine team.

{
  "properties": {
    "featureFlags": {
      "enableTelemetry": true
    },
    ...
    "telemetryProfile": {
      "applicationInsightsKey": "7440e089-79e1-4cb4-96b7-d8e9a460eb74"
    }
  }
}

Windows Specific Differences (wip)

Currently, Windows CSE will only log telemetry to the AKS Engine Application Insights instance, even if applicationInsightsKey is set. In a future change set, this feature will be enabled.

Collection Settings and Results

AKS Engine has the concept of a system defined AKS Engine Application Insights key as well as a user defined key. The table below describes where telemetry is logged based on the configuration settings.

enableTelemetry	applicationInsightsKey set	result
true	true	both user and AKS Engine telemetry is tracked
false	true	no telemetry is tracked
true	false	only AKS Engine telemetry is tracked
false	false	no telemetry is tracked