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Azure Stack telemetry

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Azure Stack system data, or telemetry, is automatically uploaded to Microsoft via the Connected User Experience. Data gathered from Azure Stack telemetry is used by Microsoft teams primarily to improve our customer experience. It's also used for security, health, quality, and performance analysis.

As an Azure Stack operator, telemetry can provide valuable insights into enterprise deployments and gives you a voice that helps shape future versions of Azure Stack.

Note

Azure Stack can also be configured to forward usage info to Azure for billing. This is required for multi-node Azure Stack customers who choose pay-as-you-use billing. Usage reporting is controlled independently from telemetry and isn't required for multi-node customers who choose the capacity model or for Azure Stack Development Kit (ASDK) users. For these scenarios, usage reporting can be turned off using the registration script.

Azure Stack telemetry is based on the Windows Server 2016 Connected User Experience and Telemetry component, which uses the Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) trace logging technology to gather and store telemetry events and data. Azure Stack components use the same logging technology to publish events and data that are gathered by using public operating system event logging and tracing APIs. Examples of Azure Stack components include Network Resource Provider, Storage Resource Provider, Monitoring Resource Provider, and Update Resource Provider. The Connected User Experience and Telemetry component encrypts data using SSL and uses certificate pinning to transmit telemetry data over HTTPS to the Microsoft Data Management service.

Note

To support telemetry data flow, port 443 (HTTPS) must be open in your network. The Connected User Experience and Telemetry component connects to the Microsoft Data Management service at https://v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com and also to https://settings-win.data.microsoft.com to download configuration info.

Privacy considerations

The ETW service routes send telemetry data back to protected cloud storage. The principle of least privileged guides access to telemetry data. Only Microsoft personnel with a valid business need are permitted access to the telemetry data. Microsoft doesn't share our customer's personal data with third parties, except at the customer's discretion or for the limited purposes described in the Azure Stack Privacy Statement. We do share business reports with OEMs and partners that include aggregated, anonymized telemetry info. Data sharing decisions are made by an internal Microsoft team including privacy, legal, and data management stakeholders.

Microsoft believes in and practices information minimization. We strive to gather only the info that we need, and we store it for only as long as it's needed to provide a service or for analysis. Much of the info on how the Azure Stack system and Azure services are functioning is deleted within six months. Summarized or aggregated data are kept for a longer period.

We understand that the privacy and security of our customers' info is important. We've taken a thoughtful and comprehensive approach to customer privacy and the protection of customer data with Azure Stack. IT admins have controls to customize features and privacy settings at any time. Our commitment to transparency and trust is clear:

  • We're open with customers about the types of data we gather.
  • We put enterprise customers in control—they can customize their own privacy settings.
  • We put customer privacy and security first.
  • We're transparent about how telemetry gets used.
  • We use telemetry to improve customer experiences.

Microsoft doesn't intend to gather sensitive info, such as credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, email addresses. If we determine that sensitive info has been inadvertently received, we delete it.

Examples of how Microsoft uses the telemetry data

Telemetry plays an important role in helping us quickly identify and fix critical reliability issues in our customers' deployments and configurations. Insights into the telemetry data that we gather help us quickly identify issues with services or hardware configurations. Microsoft's ability to get this data from customers and drive improvements into the ecosystem helps raise the bar for the quality of our integrated Azure Stack solutions.

Telemetry also helps Microsoft to better understand how customers deploy components, use features, and use services to achieve their business goals. Getting insights from that data helps prioritize engineering investments in areas that can directly impact our customers' experiences and workloads.

Some examples include customer usage of containers, storage, and networking configurations that are associated with Azure Stack roles. We also use the insights to drive improvements and intelligence into some of our management and monitoring solutions. This improvement helps customers diagnose quality issues and save money by making fewer support calls to Microsoft.

Manage telemetry collection

We don't recommend that you turn off telemetry in your organization as telemetry provides data that drives improved product functionality and stability. We do recognize however, that in some scenarios this may be necessary.

In these instances, you can configure the telemetry level sent to Microsoft by using registry settings predeployment or using the Telemetry Endpoints post deployment.

Set telemetry level in the Windows registry

The Windows Registry Editor is used to manually set the telemetry level on the physical host computer before deploying Azure Stack. If a management policy already exists, such as Group Policy, it overrides this registry setting.

Before deploying Azure Stack on the ASDK host, boot into the CloudBuilder.vhdx and run the following script in an elevated PowerShell window:

### Get current AllowTelemetry value on DVM Host
(Get-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\DataCollection" `
-Name AllowTelemetry).AllowTelemetry
### Set & Get updated AllowTelemetry value for ASDK-Host
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\DataCollection" `
-Name "AllowTelemetry" -Value '0' # Set this value to 0,1,2,or3.  
(Get-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\DataCollection" `
-Name AllowTelemetry).AllowTelemetry

The telemetry levels are cumulative and categorized into four levels (0-3):

0 (Security): Security data only. Info that's required to help keep the operating system secure, including data about the Connected User Experience and Telemetry component settings and Windows Defender. No Azure Stack specific telemetry is emitted at this level.

1 (Basic): Security data, and basic health and quality data. Basic device info, including: quality-related data, app compatibility, app usage data, and data from the Security level. Setting your telemetry level to Basic enables Azure Stack telemetry. The data gathered at this level includes:

  • Basic device info that helps provide an understanding about the types and configurations of native and virtualized Windows Server 2016 instances in the ecosystem, including:
    • Machine attributes, such as the OEM and model.
    • Networking attributes, such as the number and speed of network adapters.
    • Processor and memory attributes, such as the number of cores and memory size.
    • Storage attributes, such as the number of drives, type, and size.
  • Telemetry Functionality, including percent of uploaded events, dropped events, and the last upload time.
  • Quality-related info that helps Microsoft develop a basic understanding of how Azure Stack is performing. An example is the count of critical alerts on a particular hardware configuration.
  • Compatibility data, which helps provide an understanding about which resource providers are installed on a system and VM and identifies potential compatibility problems.

2 (Enhanced): Additional insights, including how the operating system and other Azure Stack services are used, how they perform, advanced reliability data, and data from both the Basic and Security levels.

3 (Full): All data necessary to identify and help to fix problems, plus data from the Security, Basic, and Enhanced levels.

Note

The default telemetry level value is 2 (enhanced).

Turning off Windows and Azure Stack telemetry disables SQL telemetry. For additional info on the implications of the Windows Server telemetry settings, reference the Windows Telemetry Whitepaper.

Important

These telemetry levels only apply to Microsoft Azure Stack components. Non-Microsoft software components and services that are running in the Hardware Lifecycle Host from Azure Stack hardware partners may communicate with their cloud services outside of these telemetry levels. You should work with your Azure Stack hardware solution provider to understand their telemetry policy, and how you can opt in or opt out.

Enable or disable telemetry after deployment

To enable or disable telemetry after deployment, you need to have access to the Privileged End Point (PEP) which is exposed on the ERCS VMs.

  1. To Enable: Set-Telemetry -Enable
  2. To Disable: Set-Telemetry -Disable

PARAMETER Detail:

.PARAMETER Enable - Turn On telemetry data upload

.PARAMETER Disable - Turn Off telemetry data upload

Next steps

Start and stop the ASDK