Which is the best suitable service to log data whether Application Insights or Log analytics?

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I am new to azure data factory.

For Azure Data Factory(ADF) What is the best suitable service to monitor logs i.e whether i have to use Application Insights or Log analytics if so why and what is the difference between these two.

Many of the blogs said, For ADF, log analytics is best suitable.
Can't we use application insights for ADF. If no why?, if yes Why? and how?

Here is my scenario:

Currently, i am using log analytics for azure data factory when pipeline is failed or success.
Can't we use application insights for the above scenario?

Please help me out from this problem. Thanks in Advance!

2
azure-application-insightsazure-data-factoryazure-log-analyticsazure-monitoring
Please see whether it helps: stackoverflow.com/questions/55112648/… – ZakiMa
@ZakiMa, Thanks for the reply. By looking the above reference, i am not clear. so, Could you please explain the main differences between Log Analytics and Application Insights. when to use? and Is there any cost differences between these two? – prasanthi
I don't think there is a price difference. If you use services which already have integration with Azure Monitor through either LA or AI then use that one. If you want to submit your data then it probably doesn't matter. AI has various AI SDKs which make it easy. – ZakiMa
I think you're right that it was designed this way. But we're merging them for 2 years now. For instance, Application Insights resources would start storing data on workspaces. Then app data will be submitted directly to workspaces as well and all Application Insights experiences will continue to work on top of it (and without Application Insights resource). I understand it's confusing and we're working really hard to remove this confusion point =) – ZakiMa
If you want to monitor your web app then the best approach is to use Application Insights SDK and have AI resource. If you need to query logs from some Azure Services then Log Analytics is a native integration at this point. – ZakiMa

2 Answers

1
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@ZakiMa's comments in the Q&A above cover the fundamental differences between Azure Log Analytics and Application Insights. Another similar discussion happened in this Stack Overflow thread.

Both of these services are under the Azure Monitor umbrella now:

Azure Monitor overview

Log Analytics is the primary tool in the Azure portal for writing log queries and interactively analyzing their results. All log data collected by Azure Monitor is stored in a Log Analytics workspace. A workspace is essentially a container where log data is collected from a variety of sources. You may have a single Log Analytics workspace for all your monitoring data or may have requirements for multiple workspaces.

Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for developers and DevOps professionals that can be used to monitor live applications. It will automatically detect performance anomalies, and includes powerful analytics tools to help diagnose issues and to understand what users actually do with the app. It's designed to help in continuously improving performance and usability.

There is also a detailed FAQ document that goes over some common questions in this area that may interest you.

1
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It is not either or. But more 'and', as both are needed. AI is more visual and in the beginning it gives more 'insights' and then you are more likely to go and use the K-query in AI. That is the start to Log Analytics(you are matured enough to use LA). in LA you just use different set of tables to query. For eg: If you want to know why your api's are blocked then you will have to query log analytics for firewall logs, not app insights.

So in short both AI and LA have their own tables to query from. AI gives default visualizations which LA fails to do. You can expand AI visualization by making Dashboards inherited from it. Onto this dashboard you can add query visualizations from LA. So you have it all in one dashboard.