How to disable standard performance counters in Application Insights?

Question

Standard performance counters in Application Insights generate too much volume. How can I disable them and only report my own counters + some standard ones (but not all), or just reduce sample frequency?

Answer 1

In my case adding counters to Counters didn't affected the default counters so both sets mine and default was reported. Fortunately the collector is open source and there is a clear clue what you need to do in order remove them. Just define an empty DefaultCounters like this:

<Add Type="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility.PerfCounterCollector.PerformanceCollectorModule, Microsoft.AI.PerfCounterCollector">
    <DefaultCounters/>
    <Counters>
        <Add PerformanceCounter="YOUR COUNTER"/>
    </Counters>
</Add>

Answer 2

Assuming you are using the latest .NET SDK, you can configure the performance counters or sampling ratio via the applicationinsights.config file.

In the Telemetry Processors section , you can set adaptive sampling by adding:

<TelemetryProcessors>
  <Add Type="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.WindowsServer.TelemetryChannel.AdaptiveSamplingTelemetryProcessor, Microsoft.AI.ServerTelemetryChannel">
    <MaxTelemetryItemsPerSecond>5</MaxTelemetryItemsPerSecond>
  </Add>
</TelemetryProcessors>

Setting specific performence counters can be in the Telemetry Modules section (see also this blog post ), for example:

<Add Type="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility.PerfCounterCollector.PerformanceCollectorModule, Microsoft.AI.PerfCounterCollector">
  <Counters>
    <Add PerformanceCounter="\Process(??APP_WIN32_PROC??)\Handle Count" ReportAs="Process handle count" />
  </Counters>      
</Add>

Removing the PerfCounterCollector type will disable performance counters collection altogether.

Asaf

Answer 3

Adding this answer for asp.netcore users. modify your startup.cs as shown. You have two options. First completely disables the perf counters.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{

    var serviceDescriptor = services.FirstOrDefault(descriptor => descriptor.ImplementationType == typeof(PerformanceCollectorModule));
    services.Remove(serviceDescriptor);
}

or second removes individual counters and you can add your own if you want later.

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{

    var modules = app.ApplicationServices.GetServices<ITelemetryModule>();
    var perfModule = modules.OfType<PerformanceCollectorModule>().First();
    perfModule.DefaultCounters.Clear();

}