Sync channel

Nov 10, 2016 · 2 min read

Application Insights API library provides a basic methods to track telemetry in the application. Like TrackTrace and TrackMetric. It also implements the basic channel to send this data to the Application Insights.

If you are using Application Insights API in short running tasks you may hit a problem that some telemetry wasn’t send. Basic channel do not provide control over data delivery. Method Flush makes an effort to flush telemetry left in buffers, but do not guarantee delivery either.

This is a very simple sync channel you can use to overcome the issues above. It has two features:

No need to Flush. When Track method complete - event is delivered
Sending is synchronous. No new threads/tasks will be started
When delivery fails - method Track will throw an exception and you can re-try.

Here is the code with the usage example:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Channel;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility;
using Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Extensibility.Implementation;

namespace DemoSyncChannel
{
    class Program
    {
        class SyncTelemetryChannel : ITelemetryChannel
        {
            private Uri endpoint = new Uri("https://dc.services.visualstudio.com/v2/track");

            public bool? DeveloperMode { get; set; }

            public string EndpointAddress { get; set; }

            public void Dispose() { }

            public void Flush() { }

            public void Send(ITelemetry item)
            {
                byte[] json = JsonSerializer.Serialize(new List<ITelemetry>() { item }, true);
                Transmission transimission = new Transmission(endpoint, json, "application/x-json-stream", JsonSerializer.CompressionType);
                var t = transimission.SendAsync();
                t.Wait();
            }
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            TelemetryConfiguration.Active.TelemetryChannel = new SyncTelemetryChannel();

            TelemetryConfiguration.Active.InstrumentationKey = "c92059c3-9428-43e7-9b85-a96fb7c9488f";
            new TelemetryClient().TrackTrace("Sync trace");

            // this will throw exception
            TelemetryConfiguration.Active.InstrumentationKey = "invalid instrumentation key";
            new TelemetryClient().TrackTrace("Sync trace");
        }
    }
}

Sync channel

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