Sysinternals for Azure: Process Explorer

Microsoft today is announcing a feature enhancement to Azure where those Azure Websites customers can now monitor and manage website processes through Process Explorer.

Process Explorer might sound familiar. Process Explorer is also the name of a Sysinternals tool and provides much of the same functionality. The Cloud version allows you to enumerate the various Azure-hosted websites and drill down into each process to determine if specific handles or modules might be causing issues with performance or other website degrading activity. And, just as you can in the Sysinternals tool, you can kill specific processes that might be causing harm.

It's equally interesting, and potentially ironic, that Mark Russinovich, the creator of the Sysinternals utility, is also a key evangelist for Azure. So, that might give us a better indicator of where the Azure version got its name. Or, maybe Microsoft is planning to port more of the Windows utility favorites to the Cloud environment.

Since Process Explorer for Azure Websites is a Cloud-based utility, maybe we should call this one a SysEXTternals utility.

Process Explorer capability for Azure Websites is free for all paying customers. Check out Azure Websites here: Websites and Apps