scrubbed, internal presentation on which framework to choose for telemetry pilot project

1. Application
telemetry & analytics
SHORTLISTED FRAMEWORKS

2. Which were looked at?
 Google Analytics
 https://analytics.google.com
 Application Insights (MS)
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/application-insights/
 PIWIK
 https://piwik.org/
 Telerik Analytics (was: EQATEC)
 http://www.telerik.com/analytics

3. Why these?
 Market penetration, community size, support quality, ecosystem
 Price = free, at least for starters
 Alternatives all pretty much offer similar functionality or are github
projects of questionable viability
 Decent overview at https://github.com/onurakpolat/awesome-analytics
 Almost all analytics / telemetry is geared towards web, comparably few
towards desktop applications / general purpose

4. Terminology heads-up
 ” Telemetry is an automated communications process by which
measurements and other data are collected at remote or inaccessible
points and transmitted to receiving equipment for monitoring”
 ” Analytics is the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in
data. Analytics often favours data visualization to communicate insight.”

5. Google analytics
 The de-facto standard
 Used in appx 50% of sites that use analytics
 Price tag = freemium = free for our purposes, potential to upgrade
 Intended for online / web but can be easily repurposed to track desktop
applications (C# support)
 https://github.com/dustyburwell/garlic
 https://www.nuget.org/packages/Gappalytics/

6. PIWIK
 Leading open alternative to Google Analytics
 Supports self-hosting, may offset any privacy / security concerns
 Web / online first, but C# support for desktop tracking
 http://piwik.org/integrate/#programming-language-platforms-and-frameworks
 Freemium = free, potential to upgrade
 Open source
 https://github.com/piwik

7. Telerik Analytics
 Easy to start using, born with desktop support, cloud-enabled
 Simple API, simple integration, e.g.
 REST API for public data access
 Query construction and data visualizations
 https://www.youtube.com/user/EQATEC
 Freemium (free limited to 100 app instances per month)
 Exception and usage monitoring

8. Application Insights
 Integrates into Visual Studio
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-visual-
studio
 Exception and usage monitoring
 Local monitoring (you’ll get metrics from the last debugging session)
 Freemium (free up to 1GB data / month)
 Analytics query language and data visualization
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-analytics-
tour
 Web/mobile and desktop/services
 Open source:
 https://github.com/Microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet

9. And the choice is...
 Application Insights (Microsoft)

10. This is why
 Low overhead: free to get started, cheap to continue
 Already part of the woodwork:
 Integration into Visual Studio (developer mode, debugging)
 Default data store is Azure, meaning integration with big data analytics
 Extendible and configurable (see github + nuget = source + packages)
 Matches the feature set of competing alternatives +
 Offline / intermittent connectivity support – will persist data under %LOCALAPPDATA% and
flush later
 Query analytics: the query language is quite expressive
 Dashboard visualization
 Nlog, Log4Net extenders (so legacy logging can be sent off to Azure also)
 Perceived low risk choice (because Microsoft)
 Cost throttling through sampling (don’t have to pay if you don’t want to)
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-sampling

11. But wait...
 In 2014, Microsoft acquired HockeyApp
 Already market domination in cross-platform metrics and diagnostics (Android, iOS,
OS X, Windows, Cordova, React Native, Unity, Xamarin)
 https://www.hockeyapp.net/blog/2014/12/11/hockeyapp-joins-microsoft.html
 From 2016, HockeyApp is recommended way to integrate Application Insights
into mobile and desktop applications
 https://weblogs.asp.net/bswiger/hockeyappreplacingappinsights
 So, should you use HockeyApp or not?
 Pro: crash reports, beta distribution, cross-platform and mobile, DevOps, compliant
with Microsoft roadmap, future-proof for Milestone rollout
 Con: extra layer of abstraction, you need a HockeyApp account, more moving parts,
potential surcharge if number of ”apps” increase > 2

12. <DEMO>

13. What’s next
 Do a minimal implementation that’s still useful
 To be considered first
 What’s possible to metric?
 What do we want to metric?
 What are we trying to accomplish?
 What will we do with the data once we have it?
 Handshake with all stakeholders
 Timeframe: finish the above and ship it in next release

14. Relevant links
 Application Insights announcement
 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2016/03/28/introducing-application-
analytics/
 Application insights analytics query language
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-analytics-
reference
 Application insights desktop applications
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-insights/app-insights-windows-
desktop
 Application insights getting started
 http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ExploringApplicationInsightsForDisconnectedOrCo
nnectedDeepTelemetryInASPNETApps.aspx