How to Add the Microsoft Monitoring Agent to Azure Arc Servers

To use some of the functionality with Azure Arc enabled servers, like Azure Update Management, Inventory, Change Tracking, Logs, and more, you will need to install the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA). In this blog post, we are going to have a look at how you can install the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) on an Azure Arc enabled server using extensions.

Introducing Azure Arc
For customers who want to simplify complex and distributed environments across on-premises, edge and multicloud, Azure Arc enables deployment of Azure services anywhere and extends Azure management to any infrastructure.
Learn more about Azure Arc here.

You can learn more about the manual MMA setup on Microsoft Docs.

How to install the Microsoft Monitoring Agent on Azure Arc enabled servers

To install the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) you can use the new extension in Azure Arc. You open the server you want to install the MMA agent in the Azure Arc server overview. Navigate to Extensions and click on Add, and select the Microsoft Monitoring Agent – Azure Arc. This works for Windows and Linux servers.

Add Microsoft Monitoring Agent Extension

Now you can enter the Azure Log Analytics workspace ID and the key. This will create a job and install the Microsoft Monitoring Agent on the server.

Workspace ID and Key

After that, you can start using features like Azure Log Analytics, Inventory, Change Tracking, Update Management, and more. You can also do this manually for Windows and Linux machines.

Conclusion

Azure Arc for servers makes it super simple to deploy the Microsoft Monitoring Agent to servers running on-premises or at other cloud providers.

You can learn more about how Azure Arc provides you with cloud-native management technologies for your hybrid cloud environment here, and you can find the documentation for Azure Arc enabled servers on Microsoft Docs.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below.