Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator AssociateMonitor and maintain Azure resourcesMedium
A financial services company needs to audit all management operations performed on their Azure SQL Databases, such as database creation, deletion, and permission changes. They also need to retain these audit logs for at least one year for compliance purposes. Which Azure Monitor feature should be configured to capture and retain these specific types of logs?
- ALog Analytics workspace
- BDiagnostic settings
- CWorkbooks
- DMetrics explorer
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Diagnostic settings
Diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor allow you to specify which logs and metrics from a resource should be sent to various destinations, including a Log Analytics workspace for long-term retention and querying, or an Azure Storage account. This is the mechanism to capture control-plane and data-plane logs for services like Azure SQL Database.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Log Analytics workspace is a destination for logs, but diagnostic settings are needed to send the logs there.
- C. Workbooks are interactive reports for visualizing data, not a mechanism for collecting logs.
- D. Metrics explorer is a tool for visualizing metric data, not for capturing or retaining logs.
Azure Monitor Diagnostic Settings
Diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor define where to send logs and metrics from Azure resources for monitoring, archiving, or analysis.
- Configured per Azure resource.
- Allows sending logs/metrics to Log Analytics, Storage Account, Event Hubs.
- Crucial for auditing and compliance by retaining specific log types.
Memory trick: Diagnostics direct where logs go for deep dives.