Virtual machine guest performance counters

The Azure Monitor Agent collects guest metrics or performance counters from Windows and Linux virtual machines. These metrics are collected from the guest operating system and are useful for monitoring virtual machine performance. The performance counters can be stored in an Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspace or an Azure Monitor workspace. For information on how to collect data from a virtual machine using Azure Monitor Agent, see Collect performance counters with Azure Monitor Agent. For information on how to install Azure Monitor Agent, see Install and manage the Azure Monitor Agent.

Platform metrics are metrics that are automatically collected by Azure Monitor for each resource type. For a complete list of platform metrics, see Azure Monitor supported metrics.

Performance counters

The following performance counters are collected by the Azure Monitor Agent for Windows and Linux virtual machines: The default sample frequency is 60 seconds. The sample frequency can be changed when creating or updating the data collection rule.

Windows virtual machines

Windows performance counters

The following performance counters are collected from Windows virtual machines by the Azure Monitor Agent:

Performance Counter	Category	Default sample frequency
\Processor Information(_Total)\% Processor Time	CPU	60
\Processor Information(_Total)\% Privileged Time	CPU	60
\Processor Information(_Total)\% User Time	CPU	60
\Processor Information(_Total)\Processor Frequency	CPU	60
\System\Processes	CPU	60
\Process(_Total)\Thread Count	CPU	60
\Process(_Total)\Handle Count	CPU	60
\System\System Up Time	CPU	60
\System\Context Switches/sec	CPU	60
\System\Processor Queue Length	CPU	60
\Memory\% Committed Bytes In Use	Memory	60
\Memory\Available Bytes	Memory	60
\Memory\Committed Bytes	Memory	60
\Memory\Cache Bytes	Memory	60
\Memory\Pool Paged Bytes	Memory	60
\Memory\Pool Nonpaged Bytes	Memory	60
\Memory\Pages/sec	Memory	60
\Memory\Page Faults/sec	Memory	60
\Process(_Total)\Working Set	Memory	60
\Process(_Total)\Working Set - Private	Memory	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\% Disk Time	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\% Disk Read Time	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\% Disk Write Time	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\% Idle Time	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Bytes/sec	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Read Bytes/sec	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Write Bytes/sec	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Transfers/sec	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Reads/sec	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Writes/sec	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk sec/Transfer	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk sec/Read	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk sec/Write	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk Queue Length	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk Read Queue Length	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk Write Queue Length	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\% Free Space	Disk	60
\LogicalDisk(_Total)\Free Megabytes	Disk	60
\Network Interface(*) \Bytes Total/sec	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Bytes Sent/sec	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Bytes Received/sec	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Packets/sec	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Packets Sent/sec	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Packets Received/sec	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Packets Outbound Errors	Network	60
\Network Interface(*) \Packets Received Errors	Network	60

Linux virtual machines

Linux performance counters

The following performance counters are collected from Linux virtual machines by the Azure Monitor Agent:

Performance counter	Category	Default sample frequency
Processor(*)\% Processor Time	CPU	60
Processor(*)\% Idle Time	CPU	60
Processor(*)\% User Time	CPU	60
Processor(*)\% Nice Time	CPU	60
Processor(*)\% Privileged Time	CPU	60
Processor(*)\% IO Wait Time	CPU	60
Processor(*)\% Interrupt Time	CPU	60
Memory(*)\Available MBytes Memory	Memory	60
Memory(*)\% Available Memory	Memory	60
Memory(*)\Used Memory MBytes	Memory	60
Memory(*)\% Used Memory	Memory	60
Memory(*)\Pages/sec	Memory	60
Memory(*)\Page Reads/sec	Memory	60
Memory(*)\Page Writes/sec	Memory	60
Memory(*)\Available MBytes Swap	Memory	60
Memory(*)\% Available Swap Space	Memory	60
Memory(*)\Used MBytes Swap Space	Memory	60
Memory(*)\% Used Swap Space	Memory	60
Process(*)\Pct User Time	Memory	60
Process(*)\Pct Privileged Time	Memory	60
Process(*)\Used Memory	Memory	60
Process(*)\Virtual Shared Memory	Memory	60
Logical Disk(*)\% Free Inodes	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\% Used Inodes	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Free Megabytes	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\% Free Space	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\% Used Space	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Logical Disk Bytes/sec	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Disk Read Bytes/sec	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Disk Write Bytes/sec	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Disk Transfers/sec	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Disk Reads/sec	Disk	60
Logical Disk(*)\Disk Writes/sec	Disk	60
Network(*)\Total Bytes Transmitted	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Bytes Received	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Bytes	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Packets Transmitted	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Packets Received	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Rx Errors	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Tx Errors	Network	60
Network(*)\Total Collisions	Network	60
System(*)\Uptime	System	60
System(*)\Load1	System	60
System(*)\Load5	System	60
System(*)\Load15	System	60
System(*)\Users	System	60
System(*)\Unique Users	System	60
System(*)\CPUs	System	60

Next steps

• Install and manage the Azure Monitor Agent
• Collect performance counters with Azure Monitor Agent