Configure diagnostic settings, including Log Analytics, storage accounts, and Event Hub

In the realm of Azure security, one of the critical aspects is the ability to diagnose issues and monitor the state of your Identity and Access configurations.

Azure provides several services that can be configured to collect, store, and analyze diagnostic data which are essential for an SC-300 Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator to understand and implement.

Azure Monitor, Azure’s dedicated monitoring service, provides the ability to collect, analyze, and act on telemetry from across your cloud and on-premises environments. This service helps to maintain the desired level of performance and availability of your services and applications and to proactively identify problems.

Configuring Diagnostic Settings

Azure resources can send their logs and metrics to various destinations. These destinations allow for different scenarios from real-time monitoring, long-term archival, to stream processing. When configuring diagnostic settings, we primarily focus on the following destinations:

• Azure Monitor Logs (via Log Analytics workspace)
• Azure Storage Accounts
• Azure Event Hubs

The process to set up diagnostic settings is similar across Azure resources. You select the specific resource in the Azure portal, go to ‘Diagnostic settings’, and choose ‘Add diagnostic setting’. Here, you name your setting, select the logs and metrics you wish to collect, and then choose the destination(s) for this data.

Log Analytics Workspace

A Log Analytics workspace is an environment for storing and analyzing logs in Azure Monitor. When you configure diagnostic settings to send data to a Log Analytics workspace, you can write queries to analyze the data, set up alerts, and include the data in dashboards.

To set up a workspace, select ‘Create a resource’ from the Azure Portal, search for ‘Log Analytics’ and go through the process of creating a workspace. Once created, you can configure your diagnostic settings to send data to this workspace.

Azure Storage Account

Azure Storage Accounts are highly scalable and secure storage options for large quantities of data. When setting up a diagnostic setting to send data to a storage account, it’s typically for archiving the logs for auditing or manual inspection purposes, as the data is stored in the form of blobs.

Creating a storage account is straightforward. From the Azure Portal, select ‘Create a resource’, search for ‘Storage Account’, and proceed through the creation process. Post-creation, you can select it as a diagnostic log destination.

Azure Event Hubs

Azure Event Hubs is a big data streaming platform and event ingestion service. It can process millions of events per second and can be used as a real-time analytics and event-driven architecture component. Sending logs to an Event Hub allows you to then process the data or forward it to a third-party service or custom analytics service like Apache Kafka.

To create an Event Hub, navigate to ‘Create a resource’ in the Azure Portal, find ‘Event Hubs’, and set up a namespace. Within the namespace, you can create one or more event hubs, which can then be selected within diagnostic settings.

Example Scenario: Enabling Diagnostic Settings for Azure Active Directory

Consider that you want to enable diagnostic settings for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to troubleshoot sign-in and audit activities:

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to Azure Active Directory.
2. Select ‘Diagnostic settings’ and then ‘Add diagnostic setting’.
3. Provide a name for your diagnostic setting.
4. Select the specific log categories you are interested in, such as ‘SignInLogs’ and ‘AuditLogs’.
5. Choose your destinations:
   • To send logs to a Log Analytics workspace: select ‘Send to Log Analytics workspace’ and pick the appropriate workspace.
   • To archive logs in a storage account: select ‘Archive to a storage account’ and configure the storage account.
   • For streaming via Event Hub: select ‘Stream to an event hub’, choose the namespace, and select an event hub.

After configuring, remember to save the diagnostic settings. Metrics and logs will start flowing into your selected destinations, and then you can use tools specific to each destination to monitor and analyze your data for Azure AD.

By configuring these diagnostic settings, you ensure that the right data is captured and made available for analysis, alerting, and troubleshooting, thus enabling effective management and oversight of Azure AD services. It’s crucial to regularly review and update these settings to align with your monitoring strategy and compliance requirements.