Lab: Auto-Instrumentation

Updated Mar 19, 2026 ·

Overview

This lab demonstrates how to monitor the performance and availability of a web application. By deploying the app with Application Insights auto-instrumentation enabled, you can automatically collect telemetry data, such as response times, dependencies, and errors—without adding manual instrumentation code.

Deploy the Web App

1. Navigate to App Services in Azure Portal

2. Click Create ➔ Web App

   

3. Provide a unique name for your web app and fill in the details.

   

   Optional: You can also set the pricing plan to use at the bottom of the page.

   

4. Under Monitor + secure, enable Application Insights to automatically collect telemetry data.

   Click Review + create then Create.

   

5. Once deployment completes, navigate to the newly created web app.

   

Exploring Metrics

1. Open you web app and copy the defaul domain URL.

   

2. Open the web app URL in a separate tab.

   Refresh the page a few times to generate traffic.

   

3. Go back to your web app in Azure portal and go to Monitoring ➔ Application Insights

   Click the linked application insights.

   

4. In the Application Insights resource, go to Investigate ➔ Performance.

   Here we can se the request counts, duration of each operation, and the performance timeline.

   

5. Go to Investigate ➔ Live Metrics and view the real-time telemetry.

   Here, we can see the request rates, response times, server health, etc.

   Note: To generate more traffic, go back to the web page and refresh for a couple more times.

   

6. Go back to Performance and click Drill intro...samples.

   These are example requests or transactions that have been captured by Application Insights. They show real or simulated telemetry for the app.

   

7. You can select any of the sample operations here.

   Clicking a sample operation lets you drill into a specific request or transaction to see:

   • Duration / response time
   • Dependencies and their performance
   • Any exceptions thrown
   • Call stack or operation details
   • Timeline of events for that request

   Example:

   

8. You should see the End-to-end transaction details for the specific operation.

   This view shows a detailed trace of a single request, including all its dependencies and timings.

   

9. Click View all to see the traces and events for the operation.

   The traces, dependencies, and events captured for that operation provides you a full picture of how the request flowed through your app.