Send Azure Monitor Activity log data

The Azure Monitor Activity Log is a platform log that provides insight into subscription-level events. The Activity Log includes information like when a resource is modified or a virtual machine is started. You can view the Activity Log in the Azure portal or retrieve entries with PowerShell and the Azure CLI. This article provides information on how to view the Activity Log and send it to different destinations.

Create a diagnostic setting to send the Activity Log to one or more of these locations:

• Log Analytics workspace for more complex querying and alerting
• Azure Event Hubs to forwarding logs outside of Azure.
• Azure Storage for cheaper, long-term archiving.

For details on how to create a diagnostic setting, see Create diagnostic settings to send platform logs and metrics to different destinations.

Send to Log Analytics workspace

Send the activity log to a Log Analytics workspace to enable the Azure Monitor Logs feature, where you:

• Correlate activity log data with other monitoring data collected by Azure Monitor.
• Consolidate log entries from multiple Azure subscriptions and tenants into one location for analysis together.
• Use log queries to perform complex analysis and gain deep insights on activity log entries.
• Use log search alerts with Activity entries for more complex alerting logic.
• Store activity log entries for longer than the activity log retention period.
• Incur no data ingestion or retention charges for activity log data stored in a Log Analytics workspace.
• The default retention period in Log Analytics is 90 days

Select Export Activity Logs to send the activity log to a Log Analytics workspace.

You can send the activity log from any single subscription to up to five workspaces.

Activity log data in a Log Analytics workspace is stored in a table called AzureActivity that you can retrieve with a log query in Log Analytics. The structure of this table varies depending on the category of the log entry. For a description of the table properties, see the Azure Monitor data reference.

For example, to view a count of activity log records for each category, use the following query:

AzureActivity
| summarize count() by CategoryValue

To retrieve all records in the administrative category, use the following query:

AzureActivity
| where CategoryValue == "Administrative"

Send to Azure Event Hubs

Send the activity log to Azure Event Hubs to send entries outside of Azure, for example, to a third-party SIEM or other log analytics solutions. Activity log events from event hubs are consumed in JSON format with a records element that contains the records in each payload. The schema depends on the category and is described in Azure activity log event schema.

The following sample output data is from event hubs for an activity log:

{
    "records": [
        {
            "time": "2019-01-21T22:14:26.9792776Z",
            "resourceId": "/subscriptions/s1/resourceGroups/MSSupportGroup/providers/microsoft.support/supporttickets/115012112305841",
            "operationName": "microsoft.support/supporttickets/write",
            "category": "Write",
            "resultType": "Success",
            "resultSignature": "Succeeded.Created",
            "durationMs": 2826,
            "callerIpAddress": "111.111.111.11",
            "correlationId": "c776f9f4-36e5-4e0e-809b-c9b3c3fb62a8",
            "identity": {
                "authorization": {
                    "scope": "/subscriptions/s1/resourceGroups/MSSupportGroup/providers/microsoft.support/supporttickets/115012112305841",
                    "action": "microsoft.support/supporttickets/write",
                    "evidence": {
                        "role": "Subscription Admin"
                    }
                },
                "claims": {
                    "aud": "https://management.core.windows.net/",
                    "iss": "https://sts.windows.net/72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47/",
                    "iat": "1421876371",
                    "nbf": "1421876371",
                    "exp": "1421880271",
                    "ver": "1.0",
                    "http://schemas.microsoft.com/identity/claims/tenantid": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
                    "http://schemas.microsoft.com/claims/authnmethodsreferences": "pwd",
                    "http://schemas.microsoft.com/identity/claims/objectidentifier": "2468adf0-8211-44e3-95xq-85137af64708",
                    "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/upn": "[email protected]",
                    "puid": "20030000801A118C",
                    "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier": "9vckmEGF7zDKk1YzIY8k0t1_EAPaXoeHyPRn6f413zM",
                    "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/givenname": "John",
                    "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/surname": "Smith",
                    "name": "John Smith",
                    "groups": "cacfe77c-e058-4712-83qw-f9b08849fd60,7f71d11d-4c41-4b23-99d2-d32ce7aa621c,31522864-0578-4ea0-9gdc-e66cc564d18c",
                    "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/name": " [email protected]",
                    "appid": "c44b4083-3bq0-49c1-b47d-974e53cbdf3c",
                    "appidacr": "2",
                    "http://schemas.microsoft.com/identity/claims/scope": "user_impersonation",
                    "http://schemas.microsoft.com/claims/authnclassreference": "1"
                }
            },
            "level": "Information",
            "location": "global",
            "properties": {
                "statusCode": "Created",
                "serviceRequestId": "50d5cddb-8ca0-47ad-9b80-6cde2207f97c"
            }
        }
    ]
}

Send to Azure Storage

Send the activity log to an Azure Storage account if you want to retain your log data longer than 90 days for audit, static analysis, or back up. If you're required to retain your events for 90 days or less, you don't need to set up archival to a storage account. Activity log events are retained in the Azure platform for 90 days.

When you send the activity log to Azure, a storage container is created in the storage account as soon as an event occurs. The blobs in the container use the following naming convention:

insights-activity-logs/resourceId=/SUBSCRIPTIONS/{subscription ID}/y={four-digit numeric year}/m={two-digit numeric month}/d={two-digit numeric day}/h={two-digit 24-hour clock hour}/m=00/PT1H.json

For example, a particular blob might have a name similar to:

insights-activity-logs/resourceId=/SUBSCRIPTIONS/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/y=2020/m=06/d=08/h=18/m=00/PT1H.json

Each PT1H.json blob contains a JSON object with events from log files that were received during the hour specified in the blob URL. During the present hour, events are appended to the PT1H.json file as they're received, regardless of when they were generated. The minute value in the URL, m=00 is always 00 as blobs are created on a per hour basis.

Each event is stored in the PT1H.json file with the following format. This format uses a common top-level schema but is otherwise unique for each category, as described in Activity log schema.

{ "time": "2020-06-12T13:07:46.766Z", "resourceId": "/SUBSCRIPTIONS/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/RESOURCEGROUPS/MY-RESOURCE-GROUP/PROVIDERS/MICROSOFT.COMPUTE/VIRTUALMACHINES/MV-VM-01", "correlationId": "0f0cb6b4-804b-4129-b893-70aeeb63997e", "operationName": "Microsoft.Resourcehealth/healthevent/Updated/action", "level": "Information", "resultType": "Updated", "category": "ResourceHealth", "properties": {"eventCategory":"ResourceHealth","eventProperties":{"title":"This virtual machine is starting as requested by an authorized user or process. It will be online shortly.","details":"VirtualMachineStartInitiatedByControlPlane","currentHealthStatus":"Unknown","previousHealthStatus":"Unknown","type":"Downtime","cause":"UserInitiated"}}}

Other methods to retrieve activity log events

You can also access activity log events by using the following methods:

• Use the Get-AzLog cmdlet to retrieve the activity log from PowerShell. See Azure Monitor PowerShell samples.
• Use az monitor activity-log to retrieve the activity log from the CLI. See Azure Monitor CLI samples.
• Use the Azure Monitor REST API to retrieve the activity log from a REST client.

Legacy collection methods

If you're collecting activity logs using the legacy collection method, we recommend you export activity logs to your Log Analytics workspace and disable the legacy collection using the Data Sources - Delete API as follows:

1. List all data sources connected to the workspace using the Data Sources - List By Workspace API and filter for activity logs by setting kind eq 'AzureActivityLog'.

   

2. Copy the name of the connection you want to disable from the API response.

   

3. Use the Data Sources - Delete API to stop collecting activity logs for the specific resource.

   

Managing legacy Log Profiles - retiring

Log profiles are the legacy method for sending the activity log to storage or event hubs. If you're using this method, transition to Diagnostic Settings, which provide better functionality and consistency with resource logs.

# Settings needed for the new log profile
$logProfileName = "default"
$locations = (Get-AzLocation).Location
$locations += "global"
$subscriptionId = "<your Azure subscription Id>"
$resourceGroupName = "<resource group name your Event Hub belongs to>"
$eventHubNamespace = "<Event Hub namespace>"

# Build the service bus rule Id from the settings above
$serviceBusRuleId = "/subscriptions/$subscriptionId/resourceGroups/$resourceGroupName/providers/Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces/$eventHubNamespace/authorizationrules/RootManageSharedAccessKey"

# Build the Storage Account Id from the settings above
$storageAccountId = "/subscriptions/$subscriptionId/resourceGroups/$resourceGroupName/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/$storageAccountName"

Add-AzLogProfile -Name $logProfileName -Location $locations -StorageAccountId  $storageAccountId -ServiceBusRuleId $serviceBusRuleId

Data structure changes

The Export activity logs experience sends the same data as the legacy method used to send the activity log with some changes to the structure of the AzureActivity table.

The columns in the following table are deprecated in the updated schema. They still exist in AzureActivity, but they have no data. The replacements for these columns aren't new, but they contain the same data as the deprecated column. They're in a different format, so you might need to modify log queries that use them.

The following columns have been added to AzureActivity in the updated schema:

• Authorization_d
• Claims_d
• Properties_d

Next steps

Learn more about:

• Platform logs
• Activity log event schema
• Activity log insights