Most of the Azure VM extensions have their own specialized PowerShell cmdlets to configure them, e.g. Set-AzureAccessExtension, Set-AzureVMBGInfoExtension, Set-AzureVMMicrosoftAntimalwareExtension etc. But you can also, to some extent, use the generic Set-AzureVMExtension. The example below show how to use it to install and configure the Operational Insights agent/extension in your Azure VM:

Get-AzureVM -ServiceName <cloud service name> -Name <VM name> | Set-AzureVMExtension –ExtensionName MicrosoftMonitoringAgent -PublicConfiguration ‘{“WorkspaceId”:”<OpsInsights Workspace ID”}’ -PrivateConfiguration ‘{“workspaceKey”:”<OpsInsights Primary Access Key>”}’ -Publisher Microsoft.EnterpriseCloud.Monitoring -Version 1.0 | Update-AzureVM

You can find your OpsInsights workspace ID in your Operational Insights portal.

1. Select Servers and Usage
2. Press Configure
3. Your Workspace ID and access keys are displayed on the right. Use the primary key.

For servers outside Azure you can onboard them directly following these instructions:

Connecting agents directly to Operational Insights

Happy monitoring!