8

We have multiple different apps, each deployed in multiple environments, each monitored by a separate Application Insight instance. For example 2 web applications, each deployed in dev, test, prod environments, that means 6 different Application Insight instances.

Microsoft wants to migrate Application Insights to workspace based Application Insights, so I need to create Log Analytic workspace(s). What is the best approach and why:

  • Create single workspace and put all Application Insights into this one workspace?
  • Create separate workspace for each Application Insight instance?
  • Something other? (Workspace per application, workspace per environment...)
jimmyj
  • 93
  • 2
  • 8

2 Answers2

15

[I'm a part of Application Insights team]

Overall the recommendation is to keep the number of workspaces to a minimum unless you need clear separation:

  1. Different auth for various workspaces [note, Application Insights scenarios leverage so called resource-based auth, i.e. you still will be controlling auth through Application Insights resources]
  2. Different billing quotas
  3. Different retention period
  4. Different regions
  5. Different environments

This allows you to manage less number of resources (workspaces).

So, you should make a decision based on #2 - #5 (as mentioned above - auth is not relevant because it will still be controlled by Application Insights).

If you're not using advanced features (different retention), then most likely the main driver is different environment. I.e. in your case it is probably 3 workspaces (dev, test, prod).

ZakiMa
  • 5,637
  • 1
  • 24
  • 48
  • I'm curious about one thing. Before posting this question, i read a lot of official documentation, tried to find a clear answer there. Are the things, that you wrote in your answer documented in some article, that I just missed? Can you give a link to it? – jimmyj Oct 21 '21 at 18:30
  • @jimmyj, I think this is common sense guidance regarding all resources. Not necessarily unique to Log Analytics workspaces. For instance, the same applies to storage accounts. Every new account will mean extra maintenance. So unless you have to separate (due to billing/access/throttling/etc.) one might want to use one. – ZakiMa Oct 21 '21 at 22:33
  • @ZakiMa what about region recommendation? We have a instance of a web app in East US and South US. Does it make sense to have a work space for each region to handle region outages? – Jared Mar 09 '22 at 15:52
  • @Jared, I think both solutions are possible. With different workspaces you have protection against region outages but querying it might be trickier. And vice versa. At the end it will be your call. – ZakiMa Mar 09 '22 at 20:53
  • @ZakiMa Given a sophisticated dashboard with lots of charts and whatnot, and a large number of workspaces, each representing a region/environment, it would be nice to be able to easily switch which workspace the dashboard currently points to as needed. Is this possible? The problem with cloning the dashboard is it changes from time to time, making it painful to keep them all in sync. Thanks! – Todd Menier Sep 23 '22 at 22:19
  • @ToddMenier, you potentially can take a look at Workbooks or Managed Grafana and see whether it is possible to achieve something like this there. Re: cloning - we do it differently - we deploy dashboard as ARM template. So, whenever we introduce a new region or modify a dashboard - it will be rolled to all regions (including) new one with the next deployment. – ZakiMa Sep 24 '22 at 00:45
  • Can you link to an article within the Cloud Adoption Framework guidance? – Carl in 't Veld Feb 03 '23 at 08:46
2

As far as I understood from the Application Insights documentation here (and here), I think it would be also a good practice for the Log Workspace to separate them (at least) by environment, but you could use any other split or group criteria such as business meaning, correlated data, RBAC policies, managing team...

IMHO, in your case I would create 3 workspaces (dev, test, prod) and link each Application Insights in its corresponding workspace.

semoru
  • 90
  • 5