Log Analytics tutorial

Log Analytics is a tool in the Azure portal to edit and run log queries from data collected by Azure Monitor logs and interactively analyze their results. You can use Log Analytics queries to retrieve records that match particular criteria, identify trends, analyze patterns, and provide various insights into your data.

This tutorial walks you through the Log Analytics interface, gets you started with some basic queries, and shows you how you can work with the results. You'll learn how to:

Prerequisites

This tutorial uses the Log Analytics demo environment, which includes plenty of sample data that supports the sample queries. You can also use your own Azure subscription, but you might not have data in the same tables.

Open Log Analytics

Open the Log Analytics demo environment, or select Logs from the Azure Monitor menu in your subscription. This step sets the initial scope to a Log Analytics workspace so that your query selects from all data in that workspace. If you select Logs from an Azure resource's menu, the scope is set to only records from that resource. For details about the scope, see Log query scope.

You can view the scope in the upper-left corner of the screen. If you're using your own environment, you'll see an option to select a different scope. This option isn't available in the demo environment.

View table information

The left side of the screen includes the Tables tab, where you can inspect the tables that are available in the current scope. These tables are grouped by Solution by default, but you can change their grouping or filter them.

Expand the Log Management solution and locate the AppRequests table. You can expand the table to view its schema, or hover over its name to show more information about it.

Select the link below Useful links to go to the table reference that documents each table and its columns. Select Preview data to have a quick look at a few recent records in the table. This preview can be useful to ensure that this is the data that you're expecting before you run a query with it.

Write a query

Let's write a query by using the AppRequests table. Double-click its name to add it to the query window. You can also type directly in the window. You can even get IntelliSense that will help complete the names of tables in the current scope and Kusto Query Language (KQL) commands.

This is the simplest query that we can write. It just returns all the records in a table. Run it by selecting the Run button or by selecting Shift+Enter with the cursor positioned anywhere in the query text.

You can see that we do have results. The number of records that the query has returned appears in the lower-right corner.

Time range

All queries return records generated within a set time range. By default, the query returns records generated in the last 24 hours.

You can set a different time range by using the where operator in the query. You can also use the Time range dropdown list at the top of the screen.

Let's change the time range of the query by selecting Last 12 hours from the Time range dropdown. Select Run to return the results.

Multiple query conditions

Let's reduce our results further by adding another filter condition. A query can include any number of filters to target exactly the set of records that you want. Select Get Home/Index under Name, and then select Apply & Run.

Analyze results

In addition to helping you write and run queries, Log Analytics provides features for working with the results. Start by expanding a record to view the values for all of its columns.

Select the name of any column to sort the results by that column. Select the filter icon next to it to provide a filter condition. This action is similar to adding a filter condition to the query itself, except that this filter is cleared if the query is run again. Use this method if you want to quickly analyze a set of records as part of interactive analysis.

For example, set a filter on the DurationMs column to limit the records to those that took more than 150 milliseconds.

Search through query results

Let's search through the query results by using the search box at the top right of the results pane.

Enter Chicago in the query results search box, and select the arrows to find all instances of this string in your search results.

Reorganize and summarize data

To better visualize your data, you can reorganize and summarize the data in the query results based on your needs.

Select Columns to the right of the results pane to open the Columns sidebar.

In the sidebar, you'll see a list of all available columns. Drag the Url column into the Row Groups section. Results are now organized by that column, and you can collapse each group to help you with your analysis. This action is similar to adding a filter condition to the query, but instead of refetching data from the server, you're processing the data your original query returned. When you run the query again, Log Analytics retrieves data based on your original query. Use this method if you want to quickly analyze a set of records as part of interactive analysis.

Create a pivot table

To analyze the performance of your pages, create a pivot table.

In the Columns sidebar, select Pivot Mode.

Select Url and DurationMs to show the total duration of all calls to each URL.

To view the maximum call duration to each URL, select sum(DurationMs) > max.

Now let's sort the results by longest maximum call duration by selecting the max(DurationMs) column in the results pane.

Work with charts

Let's look at a query that uses numerical data that we can view in a chart. Instead of building a query, we'll select an example query.

Select Queries on the left pane. This pane includes example queries that you can add to the query window. If you're using your own workspace, you should have various queries in multiple categories. If you're using the demo environment, you might see only a single Log Analytics workspaces category. Expand that to view the queries in the category.

Select the query called Function Error rate in the Applications category. This step adds the query to the query window. Notice that the new query is separated from the other by a blank line. A query in KQL ends when it encounters a blank line, so these are considered separate queries.

The current query is the one that the cursor is positioned on. You can see that the first query is highlighted, indicating that it's the current query. Click anywhere in the new query to select it, and then select the Run button to run it.

To view the results in a graph, select Chart on the results pane. Notice that there are various options for working with the chart, such as changing it to another type.

Next steps

Now that you know how to use Log Analytics, complete the tutorial on using log queries: