Blog: Control plane metrics for AKS with Managed Prometheus are GA

[Reshmi Mangalore (mangalorereshmi)]

Summary

Adds a new AKS blog post announcing general availability of control plane metrics collection (API server, etcd, kube-scheduler, kube-controller-manager, Cluster Autoscaler, node auto-provisioning) via Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus. Covers how to enable collection and the five highest-signal metrics to monitor first, with PromQL queries and recommended alert thresholds.

Changes

• New post: website/blog/2026-08-04-aks-control-plane-metrics-ga/index.md
• Adds
  eshmi-mangalore and david-kydd entries to website/blog/authors.yml

Open items for reviewers

• Confirm whether a limitations section (e.g. Private Link support) should be added before merge
• Attach the out-of-box control plane Grafana dashboard screenshot (placeholder TODO left in the post) as ./dashboard.png
• Double check timing vs Microsoft Learn docs (learn.microsoft.com/azure/aks/control-plane-metrics-monitor currently still marked preview) so publish is in sync with docs GA update
• Add a third co-author (Sunayana Singh) once her bio/profile details are available

CC: @reshmi-mangalore for review

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds a new AKS blog post announcing GA of control plane metrics collection via Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus, and registers new author profiles for the post.

Changes:

• Added a new blog post describing how to enable AKS control plane metrics and highlighting five high-signal metrics with PromQL.
• Added two new author entries (reshmi-mangalore, david-kydd) to the blog author registry.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

File	Description
website/blog/2026-08-04-aks-control-plane-metrics-ga/index.md	New GA announcement post with setup guidance and starter PromQL queries (needs a few publishing-quality fixes).
website/blog/authors.yml	Adds author metadata entries referenced by the new post front matter.

[Reshmi Mangalore (mangalorereshmi)]

Updated: wove the preview-upgrade note into the intro paragraph (removed the standalone admonition), and updated step 5 in Recommended next steps to call out that out-of-the-box Grafana dashboards are available for monitoring AKS etcd and API server metrics.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Suppressed comments (4)

website/blog/2026-08-04-aks-control-plane-metrics-ga/index.md:59

• There is a TODO to add a limitations callout (for example, Private Link support). TODOs in published posts are easy to miss and can ship to production; please either replace this with a short "Limitations" section/callout or remove it if it's not needed.

<!-- TODO(authors): consider calling out current limitations here (e.g. Private Link support) before publishing. -->

website/blog/2026-08-04-aks-control-plane-metrics-ga/index.md:202

• The post still contains a TODO placeholder for the out-of-box Grafana dashboard screenshot. Please add the referenced image and include it in the post (or remove the placeholder) so the final published content doesn't include TODO comments.

5. Build a Grafana dashboard using the five queries above, or start from the out-of-the-box Grafana dashboards available for monitoring AKS etcd and API server metrics.

   <!-- TODO(authors): attach the out-of-box control plane dashboard screenshot as ./dashboard.png and reference it here, e.g.:
   ![AKS control plane out-of-box Grafana dashboard](./dashboard.png) -->

website/blog/2026-08-04-aks-control-plane-metrics-ga/index.md:17

• Per the repo's blog-post guidelines, a hero image should appear immediately after the truncate marker. Add a hero image reference (and ensure the image file exists in the post folder) so the post follows the standard structure and doesn't publish without a lead image.

<!-- truncate -->

This capability gives AKS customers native observability into key managed control plane components, including the **API server**, **etcd**, **kube-scheduler**, **kube-controller-manager**, **Cluster Autoscaler**, and **node auto-provisioning**. With these metrics, platform teams can better understand how workloads, controllers, automation, and scaling activity interact with the AKS control plane over time.

website/blog/2026-08-04-aks-control-plane-metrics-ga/index.md:4

• Front matter doesn't match the blog guidelines: the title is 77 characters (guideline target is under 60), and the description is ~260 characters (guideline target is 150–160). Shorten both so the listing/SEO snippet renders cleanly and consistently with other posts.

title: "Control Plane Metrics for AKS with Managed Prometheus Are Generally Available"
date: "2026-08-04"
description: "AKS control plane metrics for the API server, etcd, kube-scheduler, kube-controller-manager, Cluster Autoscaler, and node auto-provisioning are now generally available via Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus. Here are the five metrics to monitor first."