When an issue emerges in a cloud environment, the first place where administrators start looking for the cause is often the network. Microsoft Corp. hopes to ease the task for users of its Azure infrastructure-as-a-service platform with a new monitoring tool that aims to provide a visual view of application traffic.

Dubbed Azure Network Watcher, the solution displays the connections among different parts of a deployment in a dashboard that can serve as a useful reference during troubleshooting. Another panel three tabs down provides a breakdown of the security rules that regulate how those components interact. According to Microsoft, the goal is to help information technology personnel quickly determine if a high-level configuration setting is to blame for their traffic woes.

In case the problem lies elsewhere, the administrator assigned to troubleshooting duty can trace down the cause manually using Azure Network Watcher’s diagnostics features. The service provides the ability to track the traffic generated by a component and run various tests to find what’s preventing packets from reaching their destination. From there, it’s possible to narrow down the problem to ensure modifications are only applied where they’re needed.

This latter feature should come particularly handy in large environments where changing a single component or configuration settings has the potential to affect large swaths of infrastructure. Such a sprawling setup can also make it harder to look for potential problem indicators, which is why Azure Network Watcher provides the option to track specific “monitoring scenarios” through integration with Microsoft’s analytics tools.

Easing the management of large-scale deployments could make its cloud platform more appealing to enterprises. It’s one of several ways in which Microsoft hopes to level the playing field against Amazon.com Inc., which boasts a massive market share lead. Another big focus of its effort is providing better support for containers and the other technologies that developers are using to build their cloud applications.

Azure Network Watcher is available immediately at no charge from most of Microsoft’s U.S.-based cloud facilities. The company will roll out the tool in parts of the world in coming weeks.

Image: Microsoft