Monitor Azure Files using Azure Monitor
Here’s a concise summary of the article “Monitor Azure Files”:
What the article covers
Types of monitoring data available for Azure Files (platform metrics, resource logs, Azure activity log) and where that data is stored.
How to collect, route, and analyze that data using Azure Monitor tools and external export methods.
Guidance for alerts, recommended alert rules for Azure Files, and related troubleshooting and learning resources.
Key points
Supported resources and limitations
Applies to SMB and NFS depending on file share type (standard GPv2 supports SMB; premium FileStorage supports SMB and NFS).
Azure Monitor supports only Azure Resource Manager storage accounts (not classic). See: Migrate to Azure Resource Manager.
Data types and storage
Metrics: Stored in Azure Monitor metrics database; collected automatically; can be routed to Log Analytics. See: Metrics diagnostic setting and Supported metrics in Azure Monitor.
Resource logs: Provide per-resource operation details; must be routed via a diagnostic setting to be stored in Log Analytics, Storage, or Event Hubs. Logs are organized by category. See: Diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor and Supported resource logs in Azure Monitor.
Activity log: Subscription-level events collected separately; can be routed to Log Analytics or other sinks. See: Overview of the Azure activity log.
Note destination limitation: you cannot send logs to the same storage account being monitored (avoids recursion), and storage-account-based retention can be managed via lifecycle policies.
Metrics and logs for Azure Files
Azure Files metrics appear in namespaces Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts and Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/fileServices. See Azure Files monitoring data reference for available metrics.
Resource logs for Azure Files (StorageFileLogs) capture SMB and REST operations; logged only when requests occur. Authenticated requests (successful and failed) are logged; internal service operations are not.
Analysis tools
Portal tools: Metrics Explorer, Log Analytics (Kusto Query Language, KQL), and the Activity log UI.
Advanced visualization: Dashboards, Workbooks, Power BI.
Export: Metrics and logs can be retrieved via REST APIs or client libraries.
Kusto (KQL) examples (to run in Log Analytics)
Example queries provided for SMB and HTTPS errors and for creating pie charts of operations (uses the StorageFileLogs table). Links to StorageFileLogs column reference and Log Analytics tutorial are provided.
Alerts and recommendations
Azure Monitor supports metric alerts, log alerts, activity log alerts (and other types like smart detection or Prometheus alerts where supported). See Choose the right monitoring alert type.
You can apply the same metric alert rule to multiple resources in a region to monitor at scale.
Recommended Azure Files alert scenarios include throttling (Transactions), file share size (File Capacity), egress, high server latency (Success Server Latency by API), and availability. See Create monitoring alerts for Azure Files for setup instructions.
Advisor recommendations surface on the Overview page for critical conditions; see Azure Advisor overview.
Related content and learning
Links to detailed references: Azure Files monitoring data reference, Analyze Azure Files metrics, storage insights, migration to Azure Monitor metrics, troubleshooting guides, and a training module (Monitor, diagnose, and troubleshoot your Azure Storage).
Last updated: 05/13/2025
If you want, I can extract the main KQL examples or the recommended alert thresholds into a ready-to-use snippet or show how to create a diagnostic setting and route logs to Log Analytics. Which would you prefer?
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