Configuring Azure Monitor Alerts and Action Groups for Virtual Machine Monitoring

Introduction.

Monitoring is a critical component of maintaining secure, reliable, and highly available cloud environments. Azure Monitor enables administrators to detect performance issues, resource health changes, and operational anomalies before they impact users or business operations.

In this guide, you'll learn how to configure an Azure Monitor Action Group to send email notifications and create an alert rule that monitors CPU utilization for an Azure Virtual Machine. By completing these steps, you'll establish an automated notification system that promptly informs administrators whenever CPU usage exceeds the configured threshold, enabling faster response times and improved operational efficiency.

Create an action group to send an email.

• In the Azure Portal Search Bar, enter Monitor and select Monitor from the list of results.

• Select Alerts in the navigation menu.

• Choose Action Groups.

• On the Action Groups page, choose Create.

• On the Basics page of the Create Action Group wizard, configure the following settings and choose Next

• On the Notifications page, set the notification type to Email/SMS message/Push/Voice and the Name to NotificationEmail. Choose the Edit (pencil) icon.

• On the Email/SMS message/Push/Voice enable the email checkbox and enter the address [e-mail]. Choose OK.

• Choose Review and Create. Choose Create.

Create an alert for virtual machine CPU utilization.

• In the Azure Portal Search Bar, enter rg-alpha and select rg-alpha from the list of results.

• From the list of items in the resource group, choose Linux-VM2.

• On the Linux-VM2 properties page, choose Alerts under Monitoring.

• On the Alerts page, choose Create and then choose Alert rule.

• On the Condition page of the Create an Alert Rule wizard, set the Signal name to Percentage CPU. Use the default settings and choose Next.

• On the Actions page, choose Select Action Group.

• On the Select Action Groups page, choose NotifyCPU and choose Select.

• On the Details page enter the Alert rule name HighCPU. Choose Review and Create and then choose Create.

Conclusion

Configuring Action Groups and Alert Rules in Azure Monitor is an essential step toward implementing proactive monitoring for cloud resources. By creating an email notification action group and associating it with a CPU utilization alert, you can automatically notify administrators whenever a virtual machine experiences unusually high CPU usage.

This automated monitoring approach reduces the need for constant manual checks, enables quicker incident response, minimizes potential downtime, and helps maintain the performance and reliability of Azure workloads. Incorporating alerts into your monitoring strategy is a best practice for ensuring operational excellence in any Azure environment.

Comments

[Oladimeji Zainab]

Azure Monitor's alerting capabilities provide organizations with a reliable way to detect and respond to infrastructure issues in real time. Combining Action Groups with metric-based alerts creates an efficient notification workflow that keeps operations teams informed of critical events as they occur.

Whether you're managing a single virtual machine or an enterprise-scale Azure environment, implementing automated alerts is a fundamental best practice for improving system visibility, reducing response times, and strengthening overall cloud governance.