Cloud service monitor data lagging back 20 minutes and only 5 minutes granularity

Hello,
is it normal that the charts and data in the monitor panel is 15 to 20 minutes old, and granularity is only 5 minutes? I'm trying to use the monitor page to debug and configure autoscaling, but this lag is making this really difficult.

hi sir,
The Chart data source is form Azure platform. We only can add/ remove some metrics into chart. If you want to monitor your service metrics, I suggest you can enable Azure diagnostic feature and get the metrics data from table storage . In other words, you
can custom the performance count using code. I suggest you can refer to this official document:
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-dotnet-diagnostics/
Regards,
Will
We are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time. Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.
Click
HERE to participate the survey.

Similar Messages

Why is there no control to turn off location services? I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS6.0.1. I now have no control over location services. Will it always be on and only activate if an application requires it?

I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS6.0.1. I now have no control over location services. Will it always be on and only activate if an application requires it? I want to be sure it will not drain the battery unnecessarily.

I found this answer in ios 4, but it worked on the ios 6 on my iphone 4:
moodogg
Currently Being Moderated Re: iPhone 4 / iOS 4 - Location Services Always On
Nov 20, 2010 10:25 PM (in response to modular747)
so i actually ended up walking into genius bar today. they couldn't figure out which program was causing the glitch either, but the way they solved it was by resetting all the location service permissions altogether. for those of you who want to know how to do this, navigate to "settings > general > reset > reset location warnings". also fyi, the apple service rep told me the purple location service icon next to each app simply signifies that particular app has requested your location within the past 24 hours, not necessarily that the app is active. hope this helps those with the same problem as i had. iPhone 4, iOS 4
I will mention that I did not have the problem until I downloaded the new googlemaps, which I have deleted off my iphone.

Cloud Service Monitor Alert Can't be Created

Hi Team,
we had a cloud service deployed at Azure North Ireland Data Center,
i would like to create monitor for the role instance, but when creating alert it shows an error, and the alert can't be created.
thanks in advance

Hello Baker,
Thanks for posting here!
I reproduced the issue on my system it works fine for me.
As per the description provided what I have understood is that the configuration did not go successfully or could be a problem in execution.
Delete the configuration and try to reconfigure the Alerts.
Sometimes it could be the browser issue. Try deleting cache and cookies and then try again or try with different browser.
If it doesn't work, I suggest you could try to deploy a new cloud service and the try to configure the Alerts.
You might want to check the below mentioned links for better understanding:
Understanding Monitoring Alerts and Notifications in Azure
How to: Receive Alert Notifications and Manage Alert Rules in AzureHow
to Monitor Cloud Services
And a Video for setting up
Endpoint Monitoring for Azure Web Sites.
Let me know if that helps!
Best Regards,
Sadiqh Ahmed

Setting up service monitoring on a group of servers, but only alerting when the service is down on all servers

Hey All -
I have the need to monitor one service that exist on 3 servers, but the service only runs on one of the servers at a time, and the servers are not set up as a cluster. Any ideas around how to accomplish this?

Hi,
Create a service monitor as previously described and then create a distributed application and add the new service monitor for all servers to a component group. Then set the health rollup to Best state of any member - I think that should work...
Further details around DA's
http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/distributed-applications-das-part-ii.html
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/9e932038-32c6-4403-8489-1535de4214be/distributed-applications-health-rollup?forum=operationsmanagerauthoring
Hope this helps..

Service install date pushed back a month

After waiting approx. a month for my Fios install, I get an email three days before the initial install date saying that it has been pushed back, another 30 days.
I call to find out why, no one can tell me. I want to cancel my order, no one can help me.
FTTP is great, but Verizon is horrible.

Probably related the potential for a strike by the CWA.

How do I get my contact and calendar data brought back from iCloud and reinstated in Outlook on my PC?

I just accepted Apple's kind invitation to synchronize my Outlook contacts and calendar with their iCloud storage. I foolishly accepted the invitation only to discover that iCloud didn't synchronize my data but stole it without any warning as to what it was going to do. Does anyone know how I can recover my data and put it back onto Outlook on my PC? I need to be able to access it when I'm offline, which I can't do if it's all hidden away in the iCloud. Besides that, any new contacts that I add don't automatically get added to iCloud. The whole arrangement makes a mockery of the concept of "synchronization".

Your data is in Outlook, in the iCloud account instead of the local (Personal Folders) account.

How to store data from a complex query and only fresh hourly or daily?

We have a report which runs quite slow (1-2 minutes) because the query is quite complicate, so we would like to run this query daily only and store in a table so for those procedures that need to use this complex query as a subquery, can just join to this table directly to get results.
However, I am not sure what kind of object I should use to store data for this complex query. Is data in global temp table only persist within transaction? I need something that can persist the data and be access by procedures.
Any suggestions are welcome,
Cheers

Thank you for your reply. I looked at the materialized view earlier on, but have some difficulties to use it. So I have some questions here:
1.The complex query is not a sum or aggregate functions, it just need to get data from different tables based on different conditions, in this case is it still appropriate to use meterialized view?
2.If it is, I created one, but how to use it in my procedure? From the articles I read, it seems I can't just query from this view directly. So do I need to keep the complex query in my procedure and how the procedure will use the meterialized view instead?
3. I also put the complex query in a normal view, then create a materialized view for this normal view (I expect the data from the complex query will be cache here), then in the procedure I just select * from my_NormalView, but it takes the same time to run even when I set the QUERY_REWRITE_ENABLED to true in the alter session. So I am not sure what else I need to do to make sure the procedure use the materialized view instead of the normal view. Can I query from the Materialized View directly?
Below in the code I copied from one of the article to create the materialized view based on my normal view:
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW HK3ControlDB.MW_RIRating
PCTFREE 5 PCTUSED 60
TABLESPACE "USERS"
STORAGE (INITIAL 50K NEXT 50K)
USING INDEX STORAGE (INITIAL 25K NEXT 25K)
REFRESH START WITH ROUND(SYSDATE + 1) + 11/24
NEXT NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), 'MONDAY') + 15/24
enable query rewrite
AS SELECT * FROM HK3ControlDB.VW_RIRating;
Cheers

I have an iPhone 3GS that I dropped in water. It still does everything but get service, can I back it up and transfer its data to a new iPhone 3GS? I heard something about how loading a backup from a water damaged phone could mess up the new one...

I have an iPhone 3GS that I dropped in water for a moment. After drying it and everything, it still does everything but get service. Can I back it up and transfer its data to a new iPhone 3GS? I heard something about how loading a backup from a water damaged phone could mess up the new one... is this true? I would truly appreciate the help, please let me know, thanks!

Sounds like your phone is in recovery mode. In this case, all data on it is gone. There's nothing to back up.

Issue in Global Services Monitor GSM

Dear all,
I'm facing a problem in Global Services Monitor.
The Resources pool contains 4 Management Servers; 2 old and 2 recently installed.
The GSM was installed and was working normally on the old Management Servers.
But, after increasing the number of management servers to be 4 instead of two, the problem appeared.
The GSM is firing alerts on the new MS's and their state are critical (old 2 servers are healthy).
The alert description is as below:
Global Service Monitor Modules: Failed to discover Global Service Monitor locations.
Failure step: 'Couldn't get the ACS endpoint from discovery service. SubscriptionId: 'a6846da0-e5d7-4bea-ab13-836d89364b60', OutsideInServiceBaseUri: 'https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/''
Message: 'Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel with authority 'gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com'.'
Details: 'System.ServiceModel.Security.SecurityNegotiationException: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel with authority 'gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com'. ---> System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed:
Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel. ---> System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: The remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure.
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendAuthResetSignal(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest, Exception exception)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ForceAuthentication(Boolean receiveFirst, Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult lazyResult)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Net.TlsStream.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult result)
at System.Net.TlsStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
at System.Net.PooledStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
at System.Net.ConnectStream.WriteHeaders(Boolean async)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
Server stack trace:
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelUtilities.ProcessGetResponseWebException(WebException webException, HttpWebRequest request, HttpAbortReason abortReason)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.RequestChannel.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.Call(String action, Boolean oneway, ProxyOperationRuntime operation, Object[] ins, Object[] outs, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.InvokeService(IMethodCallMessage methodCall, ProxyOperationRuntime operation)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.Invoke(IMessage message)
Exception rethrown at [0]:
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.Discovery.IDiscovery.GetEndpoints(String subscriptionId)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.Discovery.DiscoveryHelper.<>c__DisplayClass1.<DiscoverAcsEndpoint>b__0(IDiscovery service)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.RestCallHelper.ExecuteRestCall[TContract](Uri endpointUri, WebProxy webProxy, String accessToken, RestMethod`1 method)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.Discovery.DiscoveryHelper.DiscoverAcsEndpoint(String subscriptionId, Uri outsideInServiceBaseUri, WebProxy proxy)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.OutsideInUnitModule.DiscoveryWriteActionModule.Execute()'
Any clue?
Regards,
Khaled A. Hamad

Hi
Is there any requirement to install the Microsoft Root Certificate on the server where SCOM console is working? Shall I need to purchase Windows Azure Subscription also for GSM? Please let me know.
The scenario is - I have one SCOM server (Including all the server roles on the single server) and other server where VMM server and SCOM console is installed. I have installed GSM Management Packs on the SCOM server and configured one Web Availability Monitor
to be monitored from external servers (e.g. Chicago).
I am getting the below error:-
Log Name: Operations Manager
Source: Health Service Modules Ex
Date: 9/11/2014 7:14:26 PM
Event ID: 10001
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: SCOMCLOUD.abc.in
Description:
Global Service Monitor Modules: Failed step: 'Couldn't get the ACS endpoint from discovery service. SubscriptionId: '1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3', OutsideInServiceBaseUri: 'https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/''. Diagnostic context: RequestId
= '0fe72d85-989c-4c1b-89c1-1f4b641c1578', New ConfigHash = '65afc4b6-c18d-5e68-56d3-482e2db1851a', '1' tests, Last ConfigHash = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'. Exception: 'There was no endpoint listening at https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/DiscoveryService/1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3/Endpoints
that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.'
One or more workflows were affected by this.
Workflow name: Microsoft.SystemCenter.Omonline.OutsideIn.Discovery.ConfigUploaderRule
Instance name: Global Service Monitor
Instance ID: {298CB0DA-4453-EFD2-A7AC-C2E8F2F7100D}
Management group: SCOMGROUP
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Health Service Modules Ex" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">10001</EventID>
<Level>3</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-09-11T13:44:26.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>149790</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Operations Manager</Channel>
<Computer>SCOMCLOUD.abc.in</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>SCOMGROUP</Data>
<Data>Microsoft.SystemCenter.Omonline.OutsideIn.Discovery.ConfigUploaderRule</Data>
<Data>Global Service Monitor</Data>
<Data>{298CB0DA-4453-EFD2-A7AC-C2E8F2F7100D}</Data>
<Data>Failed step: 'Couldn't get the ACS endpoint from discovery service. SubscriptionId: '1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3', OutsideInServiceBaseUri: 'https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/''. Diagnostic context: RequestId = '0fe72d85-989c-4c1b-89c1-1f4b641c1578',
New ConfigHash = '65afc4b6-c18d-5e68-56d3-482e2db1851a', '1' tests, Last ConfigHash = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'. Exception: 'There was no endpoint listening at https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/DiscoveryService/1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3/Endpoints
that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.'</Data>
<Data>Global Service Monitor Modules</Data>
<Data>Couldn't get the ACS endpoint from discovery service. SubscriptionId: '1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3', OutsideInServiceBaseUri: 'https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/'</Data>
<Data>RequestId = '0fe72d85-989c-4c1b-89c1-1f4b641c1578', New ConfigHash = '65afc4b6-c18d-5e68-56d3-482e2db1851a', '1' tests, Last ConfigHash = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'</Data>
<Data>There was no endpoint listening at https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/DiscoveryService/1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3/Endpoints that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action.
See InnerException, if present, for more details.</Data>
<Data>System.ServiceModel.EndpointNotFoundException: There was no endpoint listening at https://gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com/DiscoveryService/1f156904-532e-416f-b570-1141438392a3/Endpoints that could accept the message. This is often
caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details. ---> System.Net.WebException: The remote name could not be resolved: 'gsm-prod.systemcenter.microsoft.com'
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
Server stack trace:
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelUtilities.ProcessGetResponseWebException(WebException webException, HttpWebRequest request, HttpAbortReason abortReason)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.RequestChannel.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.Call(String action, Boolean oneway, ProxyOperationRuntime operation, Object[] ins, Object[] outs, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.InvokeService(IMethodCallMessage methodCall, ProxyOperationRuntime operation)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.Invoke(IMessage message)
Exception rethrown at [0]:
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.Discovery.IDiscovery.GetEndpoints(String subscriptionId)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.Discovery.DiscoveryHelper.<>c__DisplayClass1.<DiscoverAcsEndpoint>b__0(IDiscovery service)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.RestCallHelper.ExecuteRestCall[TContract](Uri endpointUri, WebProxy webProxy, String accessToken, RestMethod`1 method)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.SharedLibrary.Discovery.DiscoveryHelper.DiscoverAcsEndpoint(String subscriptionId, Uri outsideInServiceBaseUri, WebProxy proxy)
at Microsoft.SystemCenter.Cloud.OutsideInUnitModule.ConfigUploaderWriteActionModule.Execute()</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
Any HELP would be really Appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Abhinav | MCTS-Server Virtualization

Add Operational Insights to Cloud Service during publish

Hello,
I have several Azure Services that I am already utilizing Application Insights on. What I would like to do is have Operational Insights added during the standard "Publish to Windows Azure" that I use from Visual Studio thereby removing the need
to manually remote into the machine and then install Microsoft Monitoring Agent and configuring my account. Can you point me to some resources demonstrating or explaining how to accomplish this?
A couple of notes:
My group has dozens of services and workers so manual install/configure is not an option for us.
All of our machines currently also have Application Insights setup and running so MMA already has a tab for Application Insights that displays if you open MMA however, there is no tab available in MMA for Operational Insights. The only way that I can add
this tab is to uninstall and then re-install using the installer found on the Operational Insights site however, doing so removes Application Insights.
Thanks!

We are working on a VM Extension to push the agent into IaaS VMs from Azure Portal as a first class experience.
The community has also come up with a DSC resource already anyway!
http://www.powershellmagazine.com/2014/11/26/dsc-resource-module-for-microsoft-monitoring-agent-install-and-configuration-for-azure-operational-insights/
For Cloud Services, we don't need/use the agent but support them already by pulling their logs from WAD - if the roles are configured to write to WAD (the usual way) we'll pick Windows Events and IIS logs (at the moment) - more data sources ideas pls see
this category on the feedback forum
http://feedback.azure.com/forums/267889-azure-operational-insights/category/88086-log-management-and-log-collection-policy
We think a lot of the other scenarios/IP's don't make sense for PaaS:
- System Updates: since PaaS roles are auto-updated
- AntiMalware: we are investigating how to support Anti Malware scenario using logs - read the comment from Richard on this thread for queries using Windows Events you can do today for that scenario
http://feedback.azure.com/forums/267889-azure-operational-insights/suggestions/6519202-support-other-antivirus-products-in-malware-assess#comments
- Capacity is currently only focused on HyperV (private cloud) but we'll be able to support 'performance' type information thru WAD again
http://feedback.azure.com/forums/267889-azure-operational-insights/suggestions/6662146-open-up-the-capacity-management-pack-for-other-sys so no agent needed either...
- SQL Assessment: you don't install SQL in Cloud Services roles; you do in IaaS VMs.
and so on...
The agent for AppInsights and OpInsights at the moment are not compatible - see this
http://feedback.azure.com/forums/267889-azure-operational-insights/suggestions/6660334-it-s-good-if-we-have-single-mma-file-for-appinsigh but again, you use Appinsights agent in your Web Roles, and you use OpInsights agent in your VMs, and for the
web roles you get the info into OpInsights from WAD. that is the most common use case.

Problem to add CUCM for the Service Monitor

I'm trying to add the CUCM for the CUSM(Service Monitor) and the Last Contact Status to CDR/CDRM DB is always "Waiting for Data"(According picture 1 attached). Due this issue, none Phone were added to service monitor.
I checked the credentials and all credentials are OK and the CUSM was added into CDR Billing Application Server list(picture 2).
I attached 2 pictures about the issue.
Picture 1: Service Monitor- Data Source Credentials Status
Picture 2: CUCM - CDR Management
Someone have any tips?
Thanks,
Luis

Well,, no responses. I have finally gotten a solution thats doesnt have this error. So, If your having this problem do this
1: Go thru all your projectes and delete all the clientConfigs, webService References, and the Service References Directories.
2: In one method or another delete the existing Web Service and Create a new one with all your subs and functions copied over.
3. DO NOT name it the same thing, so somethng like myWebSvc_03_ for the 3d time you have done this process. Fortunately, on this interation, all seems well. I can even do an update WebService without destroying the links. Makes
me wonder how much junk is hanging out in the code somewhere. I dont know if this is true or not, but it seemed to have worked best when I created all the projects and then added the sebService last. I do know that I had problems when adding a new project
to the solution after the web service was working.
4. Rebuild, and then go add you service references back into your solutions and update the code as needed.
Maybe I should just make the webservice a totally separate entity, but I am the ony one that would use it, so that seemed a additional complication.
One sort of unrelated note... You may have a solution that has a user control called in it, but itself is not using the web service. My project requires that I copy a clientConfig from another project. And then if you do a rebuild of the web service, you
my have to update this as well.
Im rather new to Silverlight, but this has been a real pain and a lot of work time lost due to this issue.
So, not an answer, but perhaps a workaround that will save you some of the pain that I have encountered.
Im marking this as answered, although its not really. At best its a workaround.

ITunes M4A vs Amazon MP3, ripping in iTunes, cloud services

Sorry to ask 3 different questions in 1 thread, but they're all kind of related..
1) I've been struggling for a while to decide which service to use for digital music. Until recently, I always bought physical CDs and ripped them to my computer at 320Kbps. Then, Amazon started to attract me with all of the deals they have and free credits, not to mention the Cloud player. So I started buying from Amazon. I also had some iTunes credit, which I used and was surprised to find quite a difference in quality. Both are 256Kbps, but Amazon uses MP3, while iTunes apparently uses AAC M4A files. The thing that stands out to me is that the audio is louder and clearer.
Has anybody else noticed this? Everywhere I look online people say there's no difference in the two, but I swear there is. If you download the same song from Amazon and iTunes then listen to them back to back at the same volume, you should notice the difference. Preferable some kind of rock song with louder music where it may be a big harder to make out the lyrics. It's not so much "quality", like the MP3s sound "bad" compared to them, or are missing parts of the audio. It's just that the M4A files are louder and seemingly clearer, making it easier to understand lyrics. It's different than just turning up the volume, the words really stand out more in an M4A file.
So is it just me, or is AAC really that much better than MP3? The 256kbps M4As from iTunes even sound better than the 320kbps MP3s I've always ripped from my CDs via Windows Media Player. I've not, however, compared to the 320kbps MP3s from Google Play, maybe I will try that sometime.
2) Assuming that it's better, that means I need to re-rip my entire CD collection. Will ripping within iTunes to M4A 256kbps give me the same quality as if I bought the file from iTunes and downloaded the file? Also, it looks like you can rip all the way up to 320kbps. Is it even worth it with AAC files, or will I likely not notice a difference over 256kbps?
3) Finally, cloud services. This is the one that has me the most confused. I have 2 goals really: #1, be able to listen to all of my music on my work computer in addition to my home computer and #2, have access to all of my music in some cloud service to access on my Android phone and Android tablet. I have 3 main services to chose from, Amazon, Google, and Apple, each with pros and cons.
Amazon
Pros - lower prices, lots of sales and free credits, all MP3s purchased there are automatically added to my Amazon Cloud, as well as any albums that have the "AutoRip" feature, Amazon Cloud Player seems sufficient both on my desktop and mobile devices.
Cons - lowest audio quality out of all services, can only store 250 personal songs for free, $25/year to upgrade to 250,000 songs
Google
Pros - lower prices than iTunes and sales, but not sure if they're as good as Amazon, all MP3s purchased there are automatically added to my play library
Cons - the desktop web client and mobile app aren't very good, IMO. You don't have much choice over how to view/organize the music. Amazon Cloud player seems better in every way.
iTunes
Pros - best audio quality, iTunes Match for $25/year to have my entire iTunes library in iCloud, including songs not purchased from iTunes (no size/# limit that I'm aware of), iTunes desktop app works fairly well and could be installed on my work computer and play my entire library with iTunes Match
Cons - highest prices, no client for Android devices, iTunes Match costs $25/year
(if I left off any pros/cons, please point them out and I'll add them to the list)
So here's my predicament: I want to start ripping all of my CDs and making all of my digital purchases in iTunes, mostly because of the superior audio quality. But, doing it this way I'll have no good cloud option for my phone and tablet. I could pay for the Amazon Cloud Pro to be able to upload my entire library there, but I would lose the quality of most files (they would match the files with their versions). I could upload my library to Google Play, but I would lose the quality there as well AND I hate their web client and mobile app.
Alternately, I could start purchasing all of my stuff from Amazon. Then, I could pay for iTunes Match to upgrade all of my songs to the better quality files, but I still couldn't use it for cloud-purposes, and it seems the only way to get the files onto your computer is to delete the source file then download it from the iCloud, but a lot of people are saying that's risky.
So, I just don't know what to do. Is there something I'm missing here that would offer me a better solution? I wish Amazon would just start offering better quality audio files, that would solve everything.
Note: I'm aware I could just store my music ON my Android phone and tablet, but 1) that would take a lot of manual work and upkeep and 2) I wouldn't have enough space on my tablet for my entire library (or on the phone without buying a 32GB microSDHC card). So, I really don't want to go that route.

AAC is a more modern codec than MP3 and thanks to advances is able to be more efficient at compressing audio than MP3. This means that at the same bit rate e.g. 256Kbps AAC will retain more of the original quality than MP3 at the same bit rate. Most of the articles I have seen say that roughly a 256Kbps AAC file would be equivalent in quality to a 320Kbps MP3 file meaning the AAC file is up to 25% more efficient.
You could if you wish rip CDs at 320Kbps AAC and that in theory would sound even better compared to a 320Kbps MP3 file. However for most people listening on a portable media player (aka. iPod) with standard earphones you would not be able to tell. In a home playing through your HiFi speakers then you might be able to tell the difference.
By the way, it is now possible to rip all your CDs in Apple Lossless format meaning it is exactly the same quality as the original CD, and still have iTunes automatically convert to AAC when copying to your iPod/iPhone. This way you get full CD quality in your home, but use a smaller slightly lower quality file on your iPod/iPhone.

Cloud Service Not Running

Hi There,
I am new to azure but I hope someone can help me. I have an asp.net web application that I am currently trying to move to azure as a cloud service. I have it set up in Visual Studio and converted it to a windows azure cloud service. This all works fine and
I can build and run the application in visual studio 2013 no problem using the azure emulator. 2 days I deployed this to windows azure and it worked just fine.
Now today, I have made changes to my application and I am trying to publish from Visual studio once again. This is failing every time whether I try to publish to staging or production. So to try and fix this I deleted everything from windows azure account
through the portal so I could start again.
Now when I create a new cloud service it creates okay but under production and staging there is a dash. I believe it is meant to say "running here". I am unable to publish to my cloud service, my application uploads from visual studio but then
i get an error telling me that i cannot publish (sorry i don't have the exact error message, but it is not very informative anyway, something like "unable to publish"). I have been googling and people are mentioning certificates and storage accounts
and editing the config files.
I cannot understand why it worked for me on my first attempt and now i cannot successfully create a cloud service.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would normallly give much better information to trouble shoot something, but having little knowledge of azure, i have no idea what other information you might need to help me, but please ask and I will tell you. Oh
I am on the free trial, I do still have credits.
Thank You
David

Hi,
I have solved the problem and I want to inform you how I did it.
The problem was that after i created my first azure cloud service and successfully published it, i then made some changes on my computer with visual studio and created a new project and copied over the files from the old project to the new project.
Somewhere along the way my certificates got lost. I now know that cloud services will create in azure without certificates but they will never run and deployments will fail.
To fix the issue i right clicked on my application in visual studio, i clicked publish, and then clicked the previous button twice to go back to the sign in, there it showed me my subscription, i clicked on the down arrow and clicked manage. I forget exactly,
but somehow i managed to sign out and delete existing subscriptions from my computer. Then i had to sign in again, and then click manage once more, then i had to go to certificates and remove the existing certificate, then click import and then you are given
a link to click on to download the certificate from azure, I downloaded it to my desktop, then imported that file, and then i proceeded to publish. Before i clicked finish it was still remembering my old storage account so at the top in the profiles drop down
menu i had to delete my profile (maybe i had to click manage or something first), then once i deleted my profile it researched and found the correct storage account. I have learned that without an already created storage account in azure that the publish will
fail too.
So for me, i had to fix my certificates, and then i had to make sure that i had a storage account in azure.
I hope this information helps someone else. I have been in IT and software development for many years and i must say, i am not finding azure cloud to be very easy.

Unable to login to cloud services

Is there anybody else having issues with cloud services ?
We have 5 cloud services with SQL DB back end, from last one hour i am unable to login to any of our app running on these cloud services.
Our services are located in Southeast Asia, all the 5 cloud services are having issues at the same time so i cant see any problem from our end.
Status page says all the services are running okay.

Apologize for the inconvenience, agree with you regarding this, however we are not sure if this is indeed a backend issue and in order to determine the cause and troubleshoot the issue, we will require the deployment ID and subscription details which is
not recommended to be posted in the public forums. I would suggest you purchase a support plan and speak to a support professional who can, based on the diagnosis take appropriate actions.
You can refer to the following link which gives information about the different support plans. You can also contact the billing/subscription team with a free ticket for more information.
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/support/plans/
Regards,
Nithin Rathnakar.

Unable to connect to VM's in new cloud service via express route

We have changed our express route setup, initially we had an express route via London, but we have added a second one via Amsterdam and removed the one via London. All existing and new vm's in the different vnet's have connection to our local datacenter,
but as soon as we create vm's in a new cloud service the published routes don't seem to be picked up and the machine are only reachable in their local vnet on azure.
Does anyone have an idea where to look, it looks like the route publishing does not seem to work correctly, but it is strange that new vm's in existing cloud service do work correctly. BGP peering and vnet have been provided access via the expressroute and
all have status provisioned.

Hi Syed,
When I try to connect to a new vm via rdp or try to do a tracert to the machine (with firewall turned off on the vm) I don't get a response (traffic is routed via the express-route correctly). If I do a tracert to an ip on the on premise network
from the vm in question the trace is directed to internet instead of to the on premise network via the express route.
the new cloud services were created in the same region as the working cloud services and the vm's are also in the same vnet/subnet as the working vm's. If I delete a vm (keeping the disks) from a new cloud service and redeployed it in an existing cloud service
I can reach it again via the internal ip.
We have checked the route publishing and the correct routes are published to the express route/vnet.
When I check the provisioning of the vnet's via get-azurededicatedcircuitlink all the vnet's in question are listed as provisioned.
I'll try to remove the bpgrouting for the original expressroute this evening to see if that helps.
kind regards
Xander

Cloud service monitor data lagging back 20 minutes and only 5 minutes granularity

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for