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Useful Operational Insights Search Query Collection

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[Edited October 27th 2014 - System Center Advisor is now a part of the new Microsoft Azure Operational Insights - Click to learn more]

This is a living document that will be periodically updated to collect useful, well-known, or sample queries to use in the Search experience in Microsoft Azure Operational Insights .

I dump new useful searches here as I come up with or stumble into them. Will keep this post periodically updated, so check it from time to time or subscribe to it.

These are some of the queries I use in my own workspace’s dashboard

My Dashboard in System Center Advisor

I hope this will provide useful examples to learn from… but reminder the full query language reference is published here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=394544 when you don’t understand why a given search magically works (or doesn’t) in your environment Smile

They are grouped by broad categories that generally map to the Intelligence Pack that produces a specific ‘Type’ of data. We also have documentation on the Types we use in various intelligence packs and the meaning of their fields here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn884648.aspx

 

General Exploration Queries

Which Management Group is generating the most data points?
* | Measure count() by ManagementGroupName

Distribution of data Types
* | Measure count() by Type

List all Computers
ObjectName!="Advisor Metrics" ObjectName!=ManagedSpace | measure max(SourceSystem) by Computer | Sort Computer

List all Computers with their most recent data's timestamp
ObjectName!="Advisor Metrics" ObjectName!=ManagedSpace | measure max(TimeGenerated) by Computer | Sort Computer

List all Computers whose last reported data is older than 4 hours
ObjectName!="Advisor Metrics" ObjectName!=ManagedSpace ObjectName!="Advisor Metrics" ObjectName!=ManagedSpace | Measure Max(TimeGenerated) as LastData by Computer | Where LastData<NOW-4HOURS | Sort Computer

Note – the ObjectName!= filters in the three queries above is just a workaround to filter out some performance data whose target object in SCOM is NOT a ‘Computer’, hence will have a improper value in that field.

Note#2 – if you see ‘duplicate’ computer names (the NETBIOS name and the FQDN for the same machine listed as distinct computer), this might be due to IIS Logs – see post here where I describe the issue with the ‘Computer’ field https://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2014/09/19/iis-log-format-requirements-in-system-center-advisor.aspx . If you know you have *other* data for that computer for sure – not just IIS logs - you can then easily filter those out (another workaround) and the last query above now becomes

Type!=W3CIISLog ObjectName!="Advisor Metrics" ObjectName!=ManagedSpace ObjectName!="Advisor Metrics" ObjectName!=ManagedSpace | Measure Max(TimeGenerated) as LastData by Computer | Where LastData<NOW-4HOURS | Sort Computer

 

Alert Management

Note – if you have been using System Center Advisor Preview, Type=Alert used to be wired to the alerts generated by Advisor Configuration Assessment scenario. With the introduction of ‘Alert Management’ Intelligence pack, which pulls up your Operations Manager Alerts into Operational Insights search, we have re-used Type=Alert for these ‘real’ and ‘reactive’ alerts, and have renamed the Advisor ‘legacy’ alerts (Configuration Assessment Alerts) to Type=ConfigurationAlert. You might need no update your saved searches.

Alerts raised during the past 1 day grouped by their severity
Type=Alert TimeRaised>NOW-1DAY | measure count() as Count by AlertSeverity

Alerts raised during the past 1 day sorted by their repeat count value
Type=Alert TimeRaised>NOW-1DAY | sort RepeatCount desc

Alerts raised during the past 24 hours which are now closed
Type=Alert TimeRaised>NOW-24HOUR AlertState=closed

Last Modified time for Alerts raised during the past 24 hours which are now closed
Type=Alert TimeRaised>NOW-24HOUR AlertState=closed | measure Max(TimeLastModified) by AlertName

Critical alerts raised during the past 24 hours
Type=Alert AlertSeverity=error TimeRaised>NOW-24HOUR

Critical alerts raised during the past 24 hours which are still active
Type=Alert AlertSeverity=error TimeRaised>NOW-24HOUR AlertState!=closed

Sources with active alerts raised during the past 24 hours
Type=Alert AlertState!=closed TimeRaised>NOW-24HOUR | measure count() as Count by SourceDisplayName

Warning alerts raised during the past 24 hours
Type=Alert AlertSeverity=warning TimeRaised>NOW-24HOUR

 

Capacity (Aggregated Performance Data)

All performance data
Type=PerfHourly

Average CPU utilization by Top 5 machines
* Type=PerfHourly CounterName="% Processor Time" InstanceName="_Total" | Measure avg(SampleValue) as AVGCPU by Computer | Sort AVGCPU desc | Top 5

Max CPU time used by HyperV by machine
Type=PerfHourly CounterName="% Total Run Time" InstanceName="_Total"  ObjectName="Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor" | Measure max(Max) as MAXCPU by Computer | Where MAXCPU>0

CPU Utilization by VM/Virtual Core
Type=PerfHourly ObjectName="Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor" CounterName="% Guest Run Time" NOT(InstanceName="_Total") | Measure Avg(SampleValue) by InstanceName

Memory Utilization by VM/Virtual Core
Type=PerfHourly ObjectName="Hyper-V Dynamic Memory VM" CounterName="Average Pressure" | Measure Avg(SampleValue) by InstanceName

Top Hosts with Highest Core Utilization
CounterName="% Core Utilization" Type=PerfHourly | Measure Avg(SampleValue) by Computer 

Top Hosts with Highest Memory Utilization
CounterName="% Memory Utilization" Type=PerfHourly | Measure Avg(SampleValue) by Computer 

Top Hosts with Inefficient VMs
CounterName="NumberVMOverUtilized" or CounterName="NumberVMIdle" or CounterName="NumberVMPoweredOff" Type=PerfHourly | Measure Avg(SampleValue) by Computer 

Top Hosts by Utilization (mathematical average of CPU and Memory usage counters)
CounterName="% Core Utilization" or CounterName="% Memory Utilization" Type=PerfHourly | Measure Avg(SampleValue) as CombinedCPUMemAvg by Computer 

 

All Events
Type=Event

Count of Events containing the word "started" grouped by EventID
Type=Event "started" | Measure count() by EventID

Count of Events grouped by Event Log
Type=Event | Measure count() by EventLog

Count of Events grouped by Event Source
Type=Event | Measure count() by Source

Count of Events grouped by Event ID
Type=Event | Measure count() by EventID

All Events with level "Warning"
Type=Event EventLevelName=warning

Count of Events with level "Warning" grouped by Event ID
Type=Event EventLevelName=warning | Measure count() by EventID

How many connections to Operations Manager's SDK service by day
Type=Event EventID=26328 EventLog="Operations Manager" | Measure count() interval 1DAY

Events in the Operations Manager Event Log whose Event ID is in the range between 2000 and 3000
Type=Event EventLog="Operations Manager" EventID:[2000..3000]

Operations Manager Event Log’s Health Service Modules events around connectivity with Advisor
Type=Event EventLog="Operations Manager" EventID:[2100..2199]

Operations Manager Event Log’s Health Service Modules errors around Type Space (=Configuration Data) Subscription Module (if these errors are frequent, Predictions in Capacity Intelligence Pack might be affected/unavailable)
Type=Event EventID=4502 "Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Mom.Modules.SubscriptionDataSource.TypeSpaceSubscriptionDataSource"

When did my servers initiate restart?
shutdown Type=Event EventLog=System Source=User32  EventID=1074 | Select TimeGenerated,Computer 

Did my servers shutdown unexpectedly?
Type=Event  EventID=6008 Source=EventLog

SQL Server was waiting on a I/O request for longer than 15 seconds
EventID=833 EventLog=Application  Source=MSSQLSERVER

Windows Firewall Policy settings have changed
Type=Event  EventLog="Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security/Firewall"  EventID=2008  

On which machines and how many times have Windows Firewall Policy settings changed
Type=Event  EventLog="Microsoft-Windows-Windows Firewall With Advanced Security/Firewall"  EventID=2008  | measure count() by Computer 

 

The following are substitutes you can use to do get some of the same information as the ‘Antimalware Intelligence Pack’ by using Log Management (i.e. for logs you are pulling from WAD for Azure machines that don’t have the MMA agent installed)

Computers with Microsoft Antimalware (SCEP/Defender/Essentials) installed
Type=Event Source="Microsoft Antimalware" | measure count() as Count by Computer

Malware detections
Type=Event Source="Microsoft Antimalware" EventID=1116

Computers with no signature update in the last 24 hours
Type=Event Source="Microsoft Antimalware" EventID=2000 | measure max(TimeGenerated) as lastdata by Computer | where lastdata < NOW-24HOURS

 

Log Management (IIS Logs)

All IIS Log Entries
Type=W3CIISLog

Count of IIS Log Entries by HTTP Request Method
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure count() by csMethod

Count of IIS Log Entries by Client IP Address
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure count() by cIP

IIS Log Entries for a specific client IP Address (replace with your own)
Type=W3CIISLog  cIP="192.168.0.1" | Select csUriStem,scBytes,csBytes,TimeTaken,scStatus

Count of IIS Log Entries by URL requested by client (without query strings)
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure count() by csUriStem

Count of IIS Log Entries by Host requested by client
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure count() by csHost

Count of IIS Log Entries by URL for the host "www.contoso.com" (replace with your own)
Type=W3CIISLog csHost="www.contoso.com" | Measure count() by csUriStem

Count of IIS Log Entries by HTTP User Agent
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure count() by csUserAgent

Total Bytes sent by Client IP Address
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure Sum(csBytes) by cIP

Total Bytes received by each Azure Role InstanceType=W3CIISLog | Measure Sum(csBytes) by RoleInstance

Total Bytes received by each IIS Computer
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure Sum(csBytes) by Computer

Total Bytes responded back to clients by each IIS Server IP Address
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure Sum(scBytes) by sIP

Total Bytes responded back to clients by Client IP Address
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure Sum(scBytes) by cIP

Average HTTP Request time by Client IP Address
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure Avg(TimeTaken) by cIP

Average HTTP Request time by HTTP Method
Type=W3CIISLog | Measure Avg(TimeTaken) by csMethod

[For more W3CIISLog search examples, also read the blog post I published earlier.]

 

Change Tracking

All Configuration Changes
Type=ConfigurationChange

All Software Changes
Type=ConfigurationChange ConfigChangeType=Software

All Windows Services Changes
Type=ConfigurationChange ConfigChangeType=WindowsServices

Change Type<Software> by Computer
Type=ConfigurationChange ConfigChangeType=Software | Measure count() by Computer

Total Changes by Computer
Type=ConfigurationChange | measure count() by Computer

Changes by Change Type
Type=ConfigurationChange | measure count() by ConfigChangeType

When was the most recent Change by Type?
Type=ConfigurationChange | measure Max(TimeGenerated) by ConfigChangeType

When was the most recent Change for each Computer?
Type=ConfigurationChange | measure Max(TimeGenerated) by Computer

List when Windows Services have been stopped
Type=ConfigurationChange ConfigChangeType=WindowsServices SvcState=Stopped 

List of all Windows Services that have been stopped, by frequency
Type=ConfigurationChange ConfigChangeType=WindowsServices SvcState=Stopped | measure count() by SvcDisplayName

Count of different Software change types
Type=ConfigurationChange ConfigChangeType=Software | measure count() by ChangeCategory

 

SQL Assessment

Did the agent pass the prerequisite check (if results are present, SQL Assessment data might not be complete, you might want to check the RunAs account configuration https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn818161.aspx )
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false FocusArea="Prerequisites"

List of Focus Areas the Recommendations are categorized into
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation  IsRollup=true | measure count() by FocusArea

SQL Recommendation by Computer
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationResult=Failed | measure count() by Computer

How much gain can I get by computer if I fix all its SQL recommendations?
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationResult=Failed | measure Sum(RecommendationWeight) by Computer

SQL Recommendation by Instance
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationResult=Failed | measure count() by SqlInstanceName

SQL Recommendation by Database
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationResult=Failed| measure count() by DatabaseName

How many SQL Recommendation are affecting a Computer a SQL Instance or a Database?
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationResult=Failed | measure count() by AffectedObjectType

How many times did each unique SQL Recommendation trigger?
Type=SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationResult=Failed | measure count() by Recommendation

Prioritized Detail Recommendations for a monthly 'RecommendationPeriod' (replace with YYYY-MM as appropriate). Great recipe for Excel export.
Type:SQLAssessmentRecommendation IsRollup=false RecommendationPeriod=2014-10 RecommendationResult=Failed | sort RecommendationWeight desc | Select RecommendationId,Recommendation,RecommendationResult,FocusArea,RecommendationWeight,Computer,AffectedObjectType,SqlInstanceName,DatabaseName

 

 

System Update Assessment

Missing Required Updates
Type=RequiredUpdate | Select UpdateTitle,KBID,UpdateClassification,UpdateSeverity,PublishDate,Computer

Missing Required Updates for server "SERVER1.contoso.com"
Type=RequiredUpdate (UpdateSeverity=Critical and UpdateClassification="Security Updates" and Server="SERVER1.contoso.com") | Select Computer,UpdateTitle,KBID,Product,UpdateSeverity,PublishDate

Missing Critical Security Updates
Type=RequiredUpdate (UpdateSeverity=Critical and UpdateClassification="Security Updates") | Select Computer,UpdateTitle,KBID,Product,UpdateSeverity,PublishDate

Missing Security Updates
Type=RequiredUpdate UpdateClassification="Security Updates" | Select Computer,UpdateTitle,KBID,Product,UpdateSeverity,PublishDate

Missing Update Rollups
Type=RequiredUpdate UpdateClassification="Update Rollups" | Select UpdateTitle,KBID,UpdateClassification,UpdateSeverity,PublishDate,Computer

Missing Updates by Product
Type=RequiredUpdate | Measure count() by Product

Missing Updates for a specific product ("Windows Server 2012" in the example)
Type=RequiredUpdate Product="Windows Server 2012"

 

Malware Assessment

Devices with Signatures out of date
Type=ProtectionStatus | measure max(ProtectionStatusRank) as Rank by DeviceName | where Rank=250

Protection Status updates per day
Type=ProtectionStatus | Measure count(ScanDate) interval 1DAY | Sort TimeGenerated desc

Malware detected grouped by 'threat'
Type=ProtectionStatus NOT (ThreatStatus="No threats detected") | Measure count() by Threat

 

Configuration Assessment (Legacy Advisor Scenario)
NOTE: For the legacy Advisor Configuration Assessment scenario, in addition to the old Silverlight screens, some data is also indexed in the new Search feature for exploration purposes. Records of Type=ConfigurationObject are indexed and updated every time an object is discovered (or re-discovered) by Advisor Configuration Assessment. There are also records of Type=ConfigurationObjectProperties that represent the properties of those objects. These are only inserted in the index when their VALUE has CHANGED since the previous known value Advisor had discovered till the previous discovery. This is somewhat similar to ‘Change Tracking’ Intelligence Pack, but less sophisticated. Also records of Type=ConfigrationAlert are indexed once those Configuration Assessment Alerts are fired (each time, even if it is a ‘repeat’ i.e. because the HealthService has restarted) on Advisor agents by Advisor Configuration Assessment Alert Rules you are not ignoring.

All 'Advisor Managed' Computers that have reported Configuration Assessment data
Type=ConfigurationObject ObjectType="Microsoft.Windows.Computer" | Measure count() by Computer

All 'Advisor Managed' Computers that have reported Configuration Assessment data (alternate version)
Type=ConfigurationObject ObjectType="Microsoft.Windows.Computer"  | Measure Max(TimeGenerated) by Computer

Count of machines by Operating System
Type=ConfigurationObject  ObjectType="Microsoft.Windows.OperatingSystem" | Measure count() by ObjectDisplayName

All Property changes tracked by Advisor Configuration Assessment for Computer "OM54.contoso.com" (replace with your own computer name)
Type="ConfigurationObjectProperty" RootObjectName="OM054.contoso.com"

IP Address changes tracked by Advisor Configuration Assessment for Computer "OM54.contoso.com" (replace with your own computer name)
Type="ConfigurationObjectProperty" Name="Microsoft.Windows.Computer.IPAddress" RootObjectName="OM054.contoso.com"

Check SQL Collation settings for each database called "tempdb" on each SQL instance on each SQL server
Type="ConfigurationObjectProperty" Name="Microsoft.SQLServer.Database.Collation" ObjectDisplayName="tempdb" | Select ObjectDisplayName, ParentObjectName, RootObjectName, Value

Machines grouped by Organizational Unit
Type="ConfigurationObjectProperty" Name="Microsoft.Windows.Computer.OrganizationalUnit" | Measure count() by Value | Where AggregatedValue>0

All Alerts generated by Advisor Configuration Assessment 
Type=ConfigurationAlert

Worst Severity of Configuration Assessment Alerts by Computer
Type=ConfigurationAlert | measure Max(Severity) by Computer 

Configuration Assessment Alerts grouped by Rule/Monitor that generated them
Type=ConfigurationAlert | measure count() by WorkflowName 

Configuration Assessment Alerts for ‘SQL Server’ workload
Type=ConfigurationAlert Workload=“SQL Server”

Active Machine-Generated Recommendations for 'Windows' (or 'SQL Server') Workloads
Type=Recommendation RecommendationStatus=Active AdvisorWorkload=Windows
Type=Recommendation RecommendationStatus=Active AdvisorWorkload="SQL Server" 

Active Machine-Generated Recommendations grouped by Computer
Type=Recommendation RecommendationStatus=Active | Measure count() by RootObjectName

List Active Directory Sites (based on computers that had that changed)
Type=ConfigurationObjectProperty Name="Microsoft.Windows.Computer.ActiveDirectorySite" | Measure count() by Value

Which machines have the most memory assigned (and that has changed - probably you will only have data for VMs with dynamic memory most of the times with this query)
Type=ConfigurationObjectProperty Name="Microsoft.Windows.OperatingSystem.PhysicalMemory" | Measure Max(Value) by RootObjectName

   

                 

Other searches on blogs

Stan has some useful ones mainly around System Update and Malware Assessments in this post https://cloudadministrator.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/system-center-advisor-restarted-time-matters-in-dashboard-part-6/ and about SQL Assessment in this other one https://cloudadministrator.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/microsoft-azure-operational-insights-preview-series-sql-assessment-part-7/

For more W3CIISLog search examples, I also posted another blog post here.

For more Windows Event searches around IIS errors (cloned from the IIS MP) in another blog post here.

I am also putting out a series of posts that guide you to take your first steps with the search syntax:

  1. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/10/19/advisor-search-first-steps-how-to-filter-data-part-i.aspx
  2. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/10/19/advisor-search-how-to-part-ii-more-on-filtering-using-boolean-operators-and-the-time-dimension.aspx
  3. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/10/19/advisor-search-how-to-part-iii-manipulating-results-the-pipeline-and-search-commands.aspx
  4. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/10/29/operational-insights-search-how-to-part-iv-introducing-the-measure-command.aspx
  5. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/10/29/azure-operational-insights-search-howto-part-v-max-and-min-statistical-functions-with-measure-command.aspx
  6. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/10/31/azure-operational-insights-search-how-to-part-vi-measure-avg-and-an-exploration-of-type-perfhourly.aspx
  7. https://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmuscett/archive/2014/11/10/azure-operational-insights-search-hot-to-part-vii-measure-sum-and-where-command.aspx

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