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Alert Management solution in Azure Log Analytics

Alert Management icon

Caution

This solution is no longer in active development and may not work as expected. We suggest you try using Azure Resource Graph to query Azure Monitor alerts.

The Alert Management solution helps you analyze all of the alerts in your Log Analytics repository. These alerts may have come from a variety of sources including those sources created by Log Analytics or imported from Nagios or Zabbix. The solution also imports alerts from any connected System Center Operations Manager management groups.

Prerequisites

The solution works with any records in the Log Analytics repository with a type of Alert, so you must perform whatever configuration is required to collect these records.

Configuration

Add the Alert Management solution to your Log Analytics workspace using the process described in Add solutions. There is no further configuration required.

Management packs

If your System Center Operations Manager management group is connected to your Log Analytics workspace, then the following management packs are installed in System Center Operations Manager when you add this solution. There is no configuration or maintenance of the management packs required.

  • Microsoft System Center Advisor Alert Management (Microsoft.IntelligencePacks.AlertManagement)

For more information on how solution management packs are updated, see Connect Operations Manager to Log Analytics.

Data collection

Agents

The following table describes the connected sources that are supported by this solution.

Connected Source Support Description
Windows agents No Direct Windows agents do not generate alerts. Log Analytics alerts can be created from events and performance data collected from Windows agents.
Linux agents No Direct Linux agents do not generate alerts. Log Analytics alerts can be created from events and performance data collected from Linux agents. Nagios and Zabbix alerts are collected from those servers that require the Linux agent.
System Center Operations Manager management group Yes Alerts that are generated on Operations Manager agents are delivered to the management group and then forwarded to Log Analytics.

A direct connection from Operations Manager agents to Log Analytics is not required. Alert data is forwarded from the management group to the Log Analytics repository.

Collection frequency

  • Alert records are available to the solution as soon as they are stored in the repository.
  • Alert data is sent from the Operations Manager management group to Log Analytics every three minutes.

Using the solution

When you add the Alert Management solution to your Log Analytics workspace, the Alert Management tile is added to your dashboard. This tile displays a count and graphical representation of the number of currently active alerts that were generated within the last 24 hours. You cannot change this time range.

Alert Management tile

Click on the Alert Management tile to open the Alert Management dashboard. The dashboard includes the columns in the following table. Each column lists the top 10 alerts by count matching that column's criteria for the specified scope and time range. You can run a log search that provides the entire list by clicking See all at the bottom of the column or by clicking the column header.

Column Description
Critical Alerts All alerts with a severity of Critical grouped by alert name. Click on an alert name to run a log search returning all records for that alert.
Warning Alerts All alerts with a severity of Warning grouped by alert name. Click on an alert name to run a log search returning all records for that alert.
Active System Center Operations Manager Alerts All alerts collected from Operations Manager with any state other than Closed grouped by source that generated the alert.
All Active Alerts All alerts with any severity grouped by alert name. Only includes Operations Manager alerts with any state other than Closed.

If you scroll to the right, the dashboard lists several common queries that you can click on to perform a log search for alert data.

Alert Management dashboard

Log Analytics records

The Alert Management solution analyzes any record with a type of Alert. Alerts created by Log Analytics or collected from Nagios or Zabbix are not directly collected by the solution.

The solution does import alerts from System Center Operations Manager and creates a corresponding record for each with a type of Alert and a SourceSystem of OpsManager. These records have the properties in the following table:

Property Description
Type Alert
SourceSystem OpsManager
AlertContext Details of the data item that caused the alert to be generated in XML format.
AlertDescription Detailed description of the alert.
AlertId GUID of the alert.
AlertName Name of the alert.
AlertPriority Priority level of the alert.
AlertSeverity Severity level of the alert.
AlertState Latest resolution state of the alert.
LastModifiedBy Name of the user who last modified the alert.
ManagementGroupName Name of the management group where the alert was generated.
RepeatCount Number of times the same alert was generated for the same monitored object since being resolved.
ResolvedBy Name of the user who resolved the alert. Empty if the alert has not yet been resolved.
SourceDisplayName Display name of the monitoring object that generated the alert.
SourceFullName Full name of the monitoring object that generated the alert.
TicketId Ticket ID for the alert if the System Center Operations Manager environment is integrated with a process for assigning tickets for alerts. Empty of no ticket ID is assigned.
TimeGenerated Date and time that the alert was created.
TimeLastModified Date and time that the alert was last changed.
TimeRaised Date and time that the alert was generated.
TimeResolved Date and time that the alert was resolved. Empty if the alert has not yet been resolved.

Sample log searches

The following table provides sample log searches for alert records collected by this solution:

Query Description
Alert | where SourceSystem == "OpsManager" and AlertSeverity == "error" and TimeRaised > ago(24h) Critical alerts raised during the past 24 hours
Alert | where AlertSeverity == "warning" and TimeRaised > ago(24h) Warning alerts raised during the past 24 hours
Alert | where SourceSystem == "OpsManager" and AlertState != "Closed" and TimeRaised > ago(24h) | summarize Count = count() by SourceDisplayName Sources with active alerts raised during the past 24 hours
Alert | where SourceSystem == "OpsManager" and AlertSeverity == "error" and TimeRaised > ago(24h) and AlertState != "Closed" Critical alerts raised during the past 24 hours that are still active
Alert | where SourceSystem == "OpsManager" and TimeRaised > ago(24h) and AlertState == "Closed" Alerts raised during the past 24 hours that are now closed
Alert | where SourceSystem == "OpsManager" and TimeRaised > ago(1d) | summarize Count = count() by AlertSeverity Alerts raised during the past 1 day grouped by their severity
Alert | where SourceSystem == "OpsManager" and TimeRaised > ago(1d) | sort by RepeatCount desc Alerts raised during the past 1 day sorted by their repeat count value

Next steps