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Author: bwren

articles/virtual-machines/monitor-vm.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ description: This article discusses how to monitor Azure virtual machines.
 ms.service: virtual-machines
 ms.topic: article
 ms.custom: subject-monitoring
-ms.date: 11/17/2021
+ms.date: 12/02/2022
 ---
 
 # Monitor Azure virtual machines
@@ -37,12 +37,19 @@ The [Activity log](../azure-monitor/essentials/activity-log.md) displays recent
 
 :::image type="content" source="media/monitor-vm/activity-log.png" lightbox="media/monitor-vm/activity-log.png" alt-text="Screenshot of the 'Activity log' pane.":::
 
+## Collect guest metrics and logs
+Azure Monitor starts automatically collecting metric data for your virtual machine host when you create the VM. To collect metrics from the guest operating system of the virtual machine, though, you must install the A[Azure Monitor agent](../azure-monitor/agents/azure-monitor-agent-overview.md). To learn how to install the Azure Monitor agent and create a data collection rule that defines the data to collect, see [Tutorial: Collect guest logs and metrics from an Azure virtual machine](../azure-monitor/vm/tutorial-monitor-vm-guest.md).
+
+If you enable [VM insights](#vm-insights), the Azure Monitor agent is installed and starts sending a predefined set of performance data to Azure Monitor Logs. You can create additional data collection rules to collect events and other performance data. For a tutorial on enabling VM insights for a virtual machine, see [Enable monitoring for Azure virtual machines](../azure-monitor/vm/tutorial-monitor-vm-enable.md).
+
+
 ## VM insights
 Some services in Azure display customized monitoring experiences in Azure Monitor. These experiences are called *insights*, and they include pre-built workbooks and other specialized features for that particular service.  
 
-VM insights are designed to monitor your entire set of Azure and hybrid virtual machines in a single interface. When you start monitoring multiple virtual machines in your Azure environment, you might want to consider enabling VM insights for the following features:
+VM insights is designed to monitor your Azure and hybrid virtual machines in a single interface. VM insights provides the following benefits beyond other features for monitoring VMs in Azure Monitor:
 
-- Simplified onboarding of the Log Analytics agent and the Dependency agent, so that you can monitor a virtual machine guest operating system and workloads.
+- Simplified onboarding of the Azure Monitor agent and the Dependency agent, so that you can monitor a virtual machine guest operating system and workloads.
+- Pre-defined data collection rules that collect the most common set of performance data.
 - Pre-defined trending performance charts and workbooks, so that you can analyze core performance metrics from the virtual machine's guest operating system.
 - The Dependency map, which displays processes that run on each virtual machine and the interconnected components with other machines and external sources.
 
@@ -54,11 +61,6 @@ For quick steps for configuring VM insights and enabling monitoring for a virtua
 
 For general information about enabling insights and a variety of methods for onboarding virtual machines, see [Enable VM insights overview](../azure-monitor/vm/vminsights-enable-overview.md).
 
-## Collect guest metrics and logs
-Azure Monitor starts automatically collecting metric data for your virtual machine host when you create the VM. To collect metrics from the guest operating system of the virtual machine, though, you must install an agent. When you enable [VM insights](#vm-insights), the Log Analytics agent is installed and starts sending performance data to Azure Monitor Logs, which then enables the **Performance** and **Map** views. For a tutorial on enabling VM insights for a virtual machine, see [Enable monitoring for Azure virtual machines](../azure-monitor/vm/tutorial-monitor-vm-enable.md).
-
-After you've enabled VM insights, install the [Azure Monitor agent](../azure-monitor/agents/azure-monitor-agent-overview.md) so that you can collect guest logs from your virtual machine and send guest metrics to the Azure Monitor **Metrics** pane. By doing so, you can also [analyze metrics on the Metrics pane](#analyze-metrics). To learn how to install the Azure Monitor agent and create a data collection rule that defines the data to collect, see [Tutorial: Collect guest logs and metrics from an Azure virtual machine](../azure-monitor/vm/tutorial-monitor-vm-guest.md).
-
 ## Analyze metrics
 Metrics are numerical values that describe some aspect of a system at a particular point in time. Although platform metrics for the virtual machine host are collected automatically, you must [install the Azure Monitor agent](#collect-guest-metrics-and-logs) to collect guest metrics. 
 
@@ -69,17 +71,43 @@ The **Overview** pane includes the most common host metrics, and you can access
 For a list of the available metrics, see [Reference: Monitoring Azure virtual machine data](monitor-vm-reference.md#metrics). 
 
 ## Analyze logs
-Data in Azure Monitor Logs is stored in a Log Analytics workspace, where it's separated into tables, each with its own set of unique properties. 
+Event data in Azure Monitor Logs is stored in a Log Analytics workspace, where it's separated into tables, each with its own set of unique properties.
 
-VM insights store the collected data in logs, and the insights provide performance and map views that you can use to interactively analyze the data. You can work directly with this data to drill down further or perform custom analyses. For more information and to get sample queries for this data, see [How to query logs from VM insights](../azure-monitor/vm/vminsights-log-query.md).
+VM insights stores the data it collects in Logs, and the insights provide performance and map views that you can use to interactively analyze the data. You can work directly with this data to drill down further or perform custom analyses. For more information and to get sample queries for this data, see [How to query logs from VM insights](../azure-monitor/vm/vminsights-log-query.md).
 
 To analyze other log data that you collect from your virtual machines, use [log queries](../azure-monitor/logs/get-started-queries.md) in [Log Analytics](../azure-monitor/logs/log-analytics-tutorial.md). Several [built-in queries](../azure-monitor/logs/queries.md) for virtual machines are available to use, or you can create your own. You can interactively work with the results of these queries, include them in a workbook to make them available to other users, or generate alerts based on their results.
 
 :::image type="content" source="media/monitor-vm/log-analytics-query.png" lightbox="media/monitor-vm/log-analytics-query.png" alt-text="Screenshot of the 'Logs' pane displaying Log Analytics query results.":::
 
+## VM availability metric (preview)
+The VM availability metric is currently in public preview. This metric value indicates whether a machine is currently running and available. You can use the metric to trend availability over time and to alert if the machine is stopped. VM availability has the values in the following table.
+
+| Value | Description |
+|:---|:---|
+| 1 | VM is running and available. | 
+| 0 | VM is unavailable. The VM could be stopped or rebooting. |
+| Null | State of the VM is unknown. |
+
+
+View the VM availability metric on the [Overview page](#overview-page) for a particular VM. This will show a graph of the availability over time.
+
+
+
 ## Alerts
-Azure Monitor alerts proactively notify you when important conditions are found in your monitoring data. These alerts can help you identify and address issues in your system before your customers notice them. You can set alerts on [metrics](/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-metric-overview), [logs](/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-unified-log), and the [activity log](/azure/azure-monitor/platform/activity-log-alerts). 
+Azure Monitor alerts proactively notify you when important conditions are found in your monitoring data. These alerts can help you identify and address issues in your system before your customers notice them. You can set alerts on [metrics](/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-metric-overview), [logs](/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-unified-log), and the [activity log](/azure/azure-monitor/platform/activity-log-alerts).
+
+### Recommended alerts
+Start by enabling recommended alerts. These are a predefined set of alert rules based on host metrics for the VM. You can quickly enable and customize each of these rules with a few clicks in the Azure portal. See [Enable recommended alert rules in the Azure portal (preview)](alerts/alerts-manage-alert-rules.md#enable-recommended-alert-rules-in-the-azure-portal-preview) for details on enabling recommended alert rules.
+
+### Availability alert
+Use the VM availability metric to alert when a VM isn't running. This metric is currently in public preview and not yet included in recommended alerts, so you must create the alert rule yourself.
 
+
+### Multi-resource metric alerts
+Using recommended alerts, a separate alert rule is created for each VM. You can choose to instead use a [multi-resource alert rule](../azure-monitor/alerts/alerts-types.md#monitor-multiple-resources) to use a single alert rule that applies to all VMs in a particular resource group or subscription (within the same region). Use the guidance at [Create a new alert rule](../azure-monitor/alerts/alerts-create-new-alert-rule.md?tabs=metric) to create a metric alert rule using a subscription or resource group for the scope and the other details from alert rules created by recommended alerts.
+
+
+## Other alert rules
 For more information about the various alerts for Azure virtual machines, see the following resources:
 
 - See [Create an alert when an Azure virtual machine is unavailable](../azure-monitor/vm/tutorial-monitor-vm-alert.md) for a tutorial on creating a log query alert for when a virtual machine is unresponsive.
@@ -89,6 +117,7 @@ For more information about the various alerts for Azure virtual machines, see th
 - For common log alert rules, go to the **Queries** pane in Log Analytics. For **Resource type**, enter **Virtual machines**, and for **Type**, enter **Alerts**.
 
 
+
 ## Next steps
 
 For documentation about the logs and metrics that are generated by Azure virtual machines, see [Reference: Monitoring Azure virtual machine data](monitor-vm-reference.md).