Insights Vs Diagnostic Settings in Azure Monitor

Question

In Azure Monitor, there is a section called Insights that allows us to configure some kind of monitoring on a chosen set of resources like Applications, VMs, Storage Accounts, Containers etc.

There is also a section called Diagnostic Settings that allows us to send logs with further detail to a chosen destination such as a Log Analytics workspace.

I am a little confused as to the difference between the two? What is the difference between the data that these tools collect?

I know with Diagnostic Settings, you can configure where the data collected is sent to, but where is the data that Insights collect stored?

What are the use cases for the two services?

Higley

Answer 1

I am a little confused as to the difference between the two?

The Azure Monitor Insights section gives access to ready made/out of the box dashboards and visualizations for specific services.

If you want longer data retention or export the data to consume the data in other ways you cannot use Insights, you need to use Diagnostic Settings to setup data export.

What is the difference between the data that these tools collect?

They both use the same source data in most, if not all, cases.

I am a little confused as to the difference between the two? What is the difference between the data that these tools collect?

There is no difference in the data. The data from Insights can be viewed directly as opposed to having to build the views over the data exported by Diagnostics Settings yourself.

What are the use cases for the two services?

I use Insights for quick & easy monitoring and troubleshooting and Diagnostic Settings to export data to custom storage solutions so we can create reports over years of data.

Also, if you need to store certain events or data for legal purposes for a long period, Diagnostics Settings is the way to go. Insights won't help you there.

Salience

Hey @Peter Bons, I have a couple of follow up question if you don't mind, 1. Do you know what the retention period for Insights Vs Diagnostic settings is? 2. Since Insights store data in Log Analaytics, it is possible to query it using KQL, right? – Higley

@MinuraPunchihewa 1. I think both default to 30 days. 2. Yes – Salience

This answer is slightly outdated as Application Insights can now write data to Log Analytics workspace, which is the same as via Diagnostic Settings, so there is no difference on retention period possible with both methods. – Deryl