Managing Azure Eventhubs

Azure Event Hubs Management Skill

Analyze and manage Azure Event Hubs with safe, read-only operations.

MANDATORY: Two-Phase Execution

You MUST follow this two-phase pattern. Skipping Phase 1 causes hallucinated namespace/hub names.

Phase 1: Discovery (ALWAYS run first)

#!/bin/bash

# 1. List Event Hubs namespaces
az eventhubs namespace list --output json | jq '.[] | {name, resourceGroup: .resourceGroup, sku: .sku.name, location}'

# 2. List Event Hubs in a namespace
az eventhubs eventhub list --namespace-name "$EH_NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --output json | jq '.[] | {name, partitionCount, messageRetentionInDays, status}'

# 3. Describe an Event Hub
az eventhubs eventhub show --namespace-name "$EH_NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --name "$EH_NAME" --output json

# 4. List consumer groups
az eventhubs eventhub consumer-group list --namespace-name "$EH_NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --eventhub-name "$EH_NAME" --output json

# 5. List authorization rules
az eventhubs namespace authorization-rule list --namespace-name "$EH_NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --output json

Phase 1 outputs:

• Namespaces with SKU and region
• Event Hubs with partition counts
• Consumer groups

Phase 2: Analysis (only after Phase 1)

Only reference namespaces, Event Hubs, and consumer groups confirmed in Phase 1.

Shell Script Patterns

Helper Function

#!/bin/bash

# Core Event Hubs helper — always use this
eh_cmd() {
    az eventhubs "$@" --output json
}

# Azure Monitor metrics
eh_metric() {
    local resource_id="$1" metric="$2" aggregation="${3:-Total}" interval="${4:-PT5M}"
    az monitor metrics list \
        --resource "$resource_id" \
        --metric "$metric" \
        --aggregation "$aggregation" \
        --interval "$interval" \
        --start-time "$(date -u -v-1H +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ 2>/dev/null || date -u -d '1 hour ago' +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)" \
        --output json
}

Anti-Hallucination Rules

• NEVER reference a namespace without confirming via az eventhubs namespace list
• NEVER reference an Event Hub without confirming via az eventhubs eventhub list
• NEVER assume consumer group names — always list them
• NEVER guess partition count — always describe the Event Hub
• NEVER assume capture is enabled — check Event Hub configuration

Safety Rules

• READ-ONLY ONLY: Use only list, show, az monitor metrics list
• FORBIDDEN: create, delete, update, az eventhubs eventhub consumer-group delete without explicit user request
• Use Azure Monitor for metrics instead of consuming messages
• NEVER receive messages from production Event Hubs for analysis

Common Operations

Namespace Overview

#!/bin/bash
echo "=== Event Hubs Namespaces ==="
eh_cmd namespace list | jq '.[] | {name, resourceGroup, sku: .sku.name, capacity: .sku.capacity, location, isAutoInflateEnabled, maximumThroughputUnits}'

echo ""
echo "=== Event Hubs per Namespace ==="
NAMESPACE="${1:-my-namespace}"
RG="${2:-my-resource-group}"
eh_cmd eventhub list --namespace-name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" | jq '.[] | {name, partitionCount, messageRetentionInDays, status, captureDescription}'

Partition Analysis

#!/bin/bash
NAMESPACE="${1:-my-namespace}"
RG="${2:-my-resource-group}"
EH_NAME="${3:-my-eventhub}"

echo "=== Event Hub Details ==="
eh_cmd eventhub show --namespace-name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --name "$EH_NAME" | jq '{name, partitionCount, partitionIds, messageRetentionInDays, status}'

echo ""
echo "=== Consumer Groups ==="
eh_cmd eventhub consumer-group list --namespace-name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --eventhub-name "$EH_NAME" | jq '.[] | {name, userMetadata}'

echo ""
echo "=== Incoming Messages (metrics) ==="
RESOURCE_ID=$(az eventhubs namespace show --name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --query id -o tsv)
eh_metric "$RESOURCE_ID" "IncomingMessages" "Total" "PT5M" | jq '.value[0].timeseries[0].data[-5:][] | {timeStamp, total}'

Capture Status

#!/bin/bash
NAMESPACE="${1:-my-namespace}"
RG="${2:-my-resource-group}"

echo "=== Event Hubs with Capture ==="
eh_cmd eventhub list --namespace-name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" | jq '[.[] | select(.captureDescription.enabled == true)] | .[] | {name, captureDescription: {enabled: .captureDescription.enabled, encoding: .captureDescription.encoding, intervalInSeconds: .captureDescription.intervalInSeconds, sizeLimitInBytes: .captureDescription.sizeLimitInBytes, destination: .captureDescription.destination}}'

echo ""
echo "=== Event Hubs without Capture ==="
eh_cmd eventhub list --namespace-name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" | jq '[.[] | select(.captureDescription.enabled != true)] | .[] | {name, partitionCount}'

Throughput Analysis

#!/bin/bash
NAMESPACE="${1:-my-namespace}"
RG="${2:-my-resource-group}"
RESOURCE_ID=$(az eventhubs namespace show --name "$NAMESPACE" --resource-group "$RG" --query id -o tsv)

echo "=== Incoming Messages ==="
eh_metric "$RESOURCE_ID" "IncomingMessages" "Total" | jq '.value[0].timeseries[0].data[-5:][] | {timeStamp, total}'

echo ""
echo "=== Outgoing Messages ==="
eh_metric "$RESOURCE_ID" "OutgoingMessages" "Total" | jq '.value[0].timeseries[0].data[-5:][] | {timeStamp, total}'

echo ""
echo "=== Incoming Bytes ==="
eh_metric "$RESOURCE_ID" "IncomingBytes" "Total" | jq '.value[0].timeseries[0].data[-5:][] | {timeStamp, totalBytes: .total}'

echo ""
echo "=== Throttled Requests ==="
eh_metric "$RESOURCE_ID" "ThrottledRequests" "Total" | jq '.value[0].timeseries[0].data[-5:][] | select(.total > 0) | {timeStamp, total}'

echo ""
echo "=== Server Errors ==="
eh_metric "$RESOURCE_ID" "ServerErrors" "Total" | jq '.value[0].timeseries[0].data[-5:][] | select(.total > 0) | {timeStamp, total}'

Output Format

Present results as a structured report:

Managing Azure Eventhubs Report
═══════════════════════════════
Resources discovered: [count]

Resource       Status    Key Metric    Issues
──────────────────────────────────────────────
[name]         [ok/warn] [value]       [findings]

Summary: [total] resources | [ok] healthy | [warn] warnings | [crit] critical
Action Items: [list of prioritized findings]

Target ≤50 lines of output. Use tables for multi-resource comparisons.

Counter-Rationalizations

Common Pitfalls

• Throughput units: Standard tier limits throughput units — throttling occurs when exceeded
• Partition count immutable: Partition count cannot be decreased after creation — plan ahead
• Consumer group limit: Standard tier allows 20 consumer groups, Premium/Dedicated allows more
• Checkpoint storage: Consumers must manage checkpoints in Azure Blob Storage — check for stale checkpoints
• Capture costs: Capture to Blob Storage incurs additional storage costs
• Auto-inflate: Auto-inflate scales TUs up but not down — monitor for cost implications