Intermediate1-2 hours

Migrate from Azure Monitor to TraceKit

Azure Monitor Application Insights ties your observability to Azure. TraceKit provides the same distributed tracing and application monitoring across any cloud or on-premise infrastructure.

Migration Steps

Replace Application Insights SDK with TraceKit SDK

Remove the Application Insights SDK package and install TraceKit. Application Insights uses a connection string or instrumentation key for authentication; TraceKit uses an API key.

Category	Before	After (TraceKit)	Notes
Package	`Microsoft.ApplicationInsights (.NET)`	`github.com/tracekit/go-sdk (Go)`	Cross-language SDK replacement
Package	`applicationinsights (npm)`	`@tracekit/node-apm (npm)`	Node.js SDK replacement
Package	`opencensus-ext-azure (pip)`	`tracekit-apm (pip)`	Python SDK replacement

Map Connection String and Instrumentation Key

Replace the Application Insights connection string or instrumentation key with TraceKit's API key. Remove Azure-specific configuration from your application settings.

Category	Before	After (TraceKit)	Notes
Authentication	`APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING`	`TRACEKIT_API_KEY + TRACEKIT_ENDPOINT`	Connection string splits into key + endpoint
Authentication	`APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY (legacy)`	`TRACEKIT_API_KEY`	Legacy key maps to API key
Service Identity	`CloudRoleName`	`TRACEKIT_SERVICE_NAME`	Cloud role maps to service name
Service Identity	`CloudRoleInstance`	`TRACEKIT_TAGS (instance=value)`	Instance identity via tags

Migrate TelemetryClient API Calls

Replace Application Insights TelemetryClient API calls with TraceKit span operations. Application Insights has separate methods for requests, dependencies, traces, and exceptions; TraceKit unifies these as span attributes and events.

Category	Before	After (TraceKit)	Notes
Initialization	`new TelemetryClient(connectionString)`	`tracekit.Init(apiKey)`	SDK initialization
Requests	`TrackRequest(name, startTime, duration, responseCode)`	`tracekit.StartSpan(ctx, name) with http.* attributes`	Requests become spans with HTTP attributes
Dependencies	`TrackDependency(name, target, data, startTime, duration)`	`tracekit.StartSpan(ctx, name)`	Dependencies become child spans
Exceptions	`TrackException(exception, properties)`	`span.RecordError(err)`	Exceptions attached to active span
Custom Events	`TrackEvent(name, properties, metrics)`	`span.AddEvent(name, attributes)`	Custom events become span events

Update Sampling and Telemetry Processors

Replace Application Insights adaptive sampling and telemetry processors with TraceKit's sampling configuration. Application Insights uses adaptive sampling by default; TraceKit uses a fixed sample rate you control.

Category	Before	After (TraceKit)	Notes
Sampling	`AdaptiveSamplingTelemetryProcessor`	`TRACEKIT_SAMPLE_RATE (0.0-1.0)`	Fixed rate replaces adaptive sampling
Filtering	`ITelemetryProcessor (custom filter pipeline)`	`tracekit.WithIgnoreEndpoints(patterns)`	SDK-level endpoint filtering
Enrichment	`ITelemetryInitializer (add properties)`	`tracekit.WithDefaultAttributes(attrs)`	Default attributes added to all spans

Verify Traces and Migrate Workbooks

Deploy the updated application and verify traces appear in TraceKit. Application Insights Workbooks and Kusto (KQL) queries can be recreated using TraceKit's dashboard filters and built-in views.

Category	Before	After (TraceKit)	Notes
Verification	`Azure Portal > Application Insights > Transaction Search`	`TraceKit Dashboard > Traces`	Verify trace capture and search
Verification	`Application Map`	`TraceKit Service Map`	Verify service dependency view
Dashboards	`Workbooks (KQL queries)`	`TraceKit Dashboard (built-in views)`	Built-in latency, error rate, throughput views

Code Examples

Before

// Azure Monitor: Use OpenCensus or OTel with Azure exporter
import (
    "contrib.go.opencensus.io/exporter/ocagent"
    "go.opencensus.io/trace"
)

func main() {
    exp, _ := ocagent.NewExporter(
        ocagent.WithInsecure(),
        ocagent.WithServiceName("my-service"),
        ocagent.WithAddress("localhost:55678"),
    )
    trace.RegisterExporter(exp)

    ctx, span := trace.StartSpan(ctx, "process-order")
    span.AddAttributes(trace.StringAttribute("order.id", "12345"))
    defer span.End()
}

After (TraceKit)

import "github.com/tracekit/go-sdk/tracekit"

func main() {
    tracekit.Init("tk_your_api_key",
        tracekit.WithService("my-service"),
        tracekit.WithEnvironment("production"),
    )
    defer tracekit.Shutdown(context.Background())

    ctx, span := tracekit.StartSpan(context.Background(), "process-order")
    span.SetAttribute("order.id", "12345")
    defer span.End()
}

Node.js

Before

const appInsights = require('applicationinsights');

appInsights.setup('InstrumentationKey=your-key;IngestionEndpoint=https://dc.services.visualstudio.com')
  .setAutoDependencyCorrelation(true)
  .setAutoCollectRequests(true)
  .start();

const client = appInsights.defaultClient;
client.trackRequest({ name: 'GET /api/orders', url: '/api/orders', duration: 125, resultCode: 200, success: true });
client.trackDependency({ target: 'db-server', name: 'SELECT orders', duration: 45, resultCode: 0, success: true, dependencyTypeName: 'SQL' });
client.trackException({ exception: new Error('Order not found') });

After (TraceKit)

const tracekit = require('@tracekit/node-apm');

tracekit.init({
  apiKey: 'tk_your_api_key',
  service: 'my-service',
  environment: 'production',
});

const span = tracekit.startSpan('GET /api/orders');
span.setAttribute('http.status_code', 200);

const dbSpan = tracekit.startSpan('SELECT orders', { parent: span });
dbSpan.setAttribute('db.system', 'sql');
dbSpan.end();

span.recordError(new Error('Order not found'));
span.end();

Python

Before

from opencensus.ext.azure.trace_exporter import AzureExporter
from opencensus.trace.tracer import Tracer

tracer = Tracer(
    exporter=AzureExporter(
        connection_string='InstrumentationKey=your-key'
    ),
)

with tracer.span(name='process-order') as span:
    span.add_attribute('order.id', '12345')
    # ... business logic

After (TraceKit)

import tracekit

tracekit.init(
    api_key='tk_your_api_key',
    service='my-service',
    environment='production',
)

with tracekit.start_span('process-order') as span:
    span.set_attribute('order.id', '12345')
    # ... business logic

Related Resources

TraceKit vs Azure Monitor

Compare Application Insights with TraceKit

Getting Started Guide

Set up TraceKit from scratch in under 5 minutes

Observability Checklist

Ensure your monitoring covers all the bases

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