Azure DevOps Server Health Dashboard with WinRM and Blazor

What I Needed to Solve

The goal was simple: run a scheduled health check from Azure DevOps, validate Windows servers through WinRM, save the result into a reporting database, and show the latest state in a Blazor dashboard.

• Check server reachability and WinRM connectivity.
• Check IIS site and app pool state.
• Run approved validation scripts when needed.
• Keep a history of snapshots instead of only showing the current state.

Why This Was Worth Building

• Manual checks were repetitive and slow.
• Different teams needed one consistent view.
• A snapshot model gave me history without making the pipeline a live monitoring service.
• WinRM gave me a controlled way to execute PowerShell on Windows targets.

How I Structured It

Demo Dashboard Preview

This small preview shows the shape of the dashboard I built. The real UI reads from the reporting DB, but this captures the summary cards and server grid clearly.

PowerShell Validation Shape

The script ran server-by-server, returned JSON, and stayed read-only unless I intentionally added a remedial step later.

param(
    [string]$ServerListFile,
    [string]$OutputDir
)

$servers = Get-Content $ServerListFile | ConvertFrom-Json
foreach ($server in $servers) {
    $result = [pscustomobject]@{
        server = $server.name
        environment = $server.environment
        checkedAtUtc = (Get-Date).ToUniversalTime().ToString("o")
        checks = @(
            [pscustomobject]@{ name = "Ping"; status = "Passed"; message = "Reachable" },
            [pscustomobject]@{ name = "IIS"; status = "Passed"; message = "Site started" }
        )
    }

    $result | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 8 | Set-Content (Join-Path $OutputDir "$($server.name).json")
}

Blazor Dashboard Shape

The dashboard reads the latest snapshot, shows the summary cards, and renders each server with its check breakdown.

@page "/health-dashboard"
@inject HttpClient Http

@if (_model is null)
{
    
Loading...
}
else
{
    
Server Health Dashboard
    
Last refresh: @_lastRefreshText
    

  

    

      
Data Panel
      
Reference table for quick scanning and comparison.
    
    

      Reference
      Live
      Status
    
  
  
            @foreach (var row in _model.Rows)
            {
                
            }
        

        

            

                
Server
                
Environment
                
Status
            
        
        

                    
@row.Server
                    
@row.Environment
                    
@row.Status
                
    

}

Security Controls I Kept

• Used a dedicated WinRM account with least privilege.
• Kept the validation job read-only.
• Stored secrets in secure pipeline variables or Key Vault.
• Separated validation from remediation.

What I Would Show Next

The next useful step is to wire the reporting API and the dashboard component to the snapshot DB so the preview becomes live data.