Azure dashboards - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Create a Custom Azure Dashboard

📖 Scenario: You are working as a cloud administrator for a company that uses Microsoft Azure. Your manager wants you to create a custom Azure dashboard to monitor key resources like virtual machines and storage accounts in one place.This dashboard will help the team quickly see important information without navigating multiple pages.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple Azure dashboard JSON configuration that includes a text tile and a metrics tile showing CPU usage of a virtual machine.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dashboard JSON object with a lenses section

Add a text tile with a welcome message

Add a metrics tile showing CPU percentage for a specific virtual machine

Include the dashboard metadata with a name

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Azure dashboards help cloud teams monitor resources in one place, improving visibility and response times.

💼 Career

Cloud administrators and DevOps engineers often create and customize dashboards to track resource health and performance.

1

Create the basic dashboard structure

Create a variable called dashboard and assign it a JSON object with an empty lenses dictionary and an empty metadata dictionary.

Azure

dashboard = {
    "lenses": {},
    "metadata": {}
}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Start by creating a Python dictionary named dashboard with keys lenses and metadata, both empty.

2

Add dashboard metadata with a name

Add a name key inside the metadata dictionary of dashboard with the value "Team Monitoring Dashboard".

Azure

dashboard = {
    "lenses": {},
    "metadata": {
        # Add the dashboard name here
    }
}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Inside dashboard["metadata"], add the key "name" with the given string value.

3

Add a text tile to the dashboard lenses

Inside dashboard["lenses"], add a key "0" with a dictionary value that has a "parts" dictionary. Inside "parts", add a key "0" with a dictionary containing "position" and "metadata". Set "position" to {"x": 0, "y": 0, "rowSpan": 2, "colSpan": 3} and "metadata" with "type" as "MarkdownPart" and "inputs" with "content" set to "

Welcome to the Team Dashboard

".

Azure

dashboard = {
    "lenses": {
        # Add lens 0 with a text tile here
    },
    "metadata": {
        "name": "Team Monitoring Dashboard"
    }
}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Follow the nested dictionary structure carefully to add the text tile inside dashboard["lenses"]["0"]["parts"]["0"].

4

Add a metrics tile showing CPU usage

Inside dashboard["lenses"]["0"]["parts"], add a key "1" with a dictionary containing "position" set to {"x": 3, "y": 0, "rowSpan": 4, "colSpan": 6} and "metadata" with "type" as "MetricsChartPart". Under "metadata", add "inputs" with "resourceId" set to "/subscriptions/12345/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/myVM" and "metricNamespace" set to "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines", and "metrics" as a list containing {"name": "Percentage CPU"}.

Azure

dashboard = {
    "lenses": {
        "0": {
            "parts": {
                "0": {
                    "position": {"x": 0, "y": 0, "rowSpan": 2, "colSpan": 3},
                    "metadata": {
                        "type": "MarkdownPart",
                        "inputs": {
                            "content": "Welcome to the Team Dashboard"
                        }
                    }
                }
                # Add metrics tile as part "1" here
            }
        }
    },
    "metadata": {
        "name": "Team Monitoring Dashboard"
    }
}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Add the metrics tile as part "1" inside the existing parts dictionary with the specified position and metadata.