Configuration of AzureWebAcsTest

The details of the Azure Web Access test that emulates a user accessing Microsoft Azure cloud are provided below. Since this test can be executed from a location external to Microsoft Azure, this test presents an unbiased external perspective of the state of Microsoft Azure cloud.

The default parameters associated with this test are:

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

• In the HOST text box, specify the HOST for which this test is to be configured.

• In the PORT text box, specify the port at which the specified Host listens.

• This test emulates a user accessing a specific web site(s) on the target Azure cloud to determine the availability and responsiveness of the cloud. To enable this emulation, you need to configure the test with the URL of the web site that it should access. Specify this URL against the URL parameter. If required, you can even configure multiple URLs - one each for every web site that the test should attempt to access. If each URL configured requires special permissions for logging in, then, you need to configure the test with separate credentials for logging into every URL. Likewise, you need to provide instructions to the test on how to validate the content returned by every URL, and also set an encoding format for each URL. To enable administrators to easily configure the above per URL, eG Enterprise provides a special interface. To access this interface, click on the encircled ‘+’ button alongside the URL text box in the test configuration page. To know how to use this special interface, click here.

• Whether any cookies being returned by the web server need to be saved locally and returned with subsequent requests specify in the COOKIE FILE textbox.

• In some environments, all communication with the Azure cloud be routed through a proxy server. In such environments, you should make sure that the eG agent connects to the cloud via the proxy server and collects metrics. To enable metrics collection via a proxy, specify the IP address of the proxy server and the port at which the server listens against the PROXY HOST and PROXY PORT parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none , indicating that the eG agent is not configured to communicate via a proxy, by default.

• If the proxy server requires authentication, then, specify a valid proxy user name and password in the PROXY USERNAME and PROXY PASSWORD parameters, respectively. Then, confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• Specify the maximum duration (in seconds) for which the test will wait for a response from the server in the TIMEOUT textbox. The default TIMEOUT period is 30 seconds.

• DNS lookups can cause significant delays in rendering a webpage. To avoid such delays, administrators may want to know how long the DNS server takes to respond to the requests. To help administrators in this regard, this test reports the DNS response time measure when the REPORT DNS TIME flag is set to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No indicating that this test will not report the DNS response time measure by default.

• If multiple components of the same component type are awaiting configuration, then an APPLY TO OTHER COMPONENTS button will appear in this page. Clicking on this button will allow you to apply the configuration to all/selected components of that type.

• Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing the configuration for specific servers, a “*” beside the text box corresponding to the parameter signifies that these values have to be manually configured by the user. The parameter values that require to be configured will typically be prefixed with a “$” or contain a series of “*”. A value of “none” in the parameter value indicates that the corresponding parameter value can be changed if required.