Getting Started with Azure Resource Graph for Scalable Cloud Operations

Azure Resource Graph is a powerful tool for managing and monitoring your Azure resources. It provides a unified view of all your resources, no matter where they are in the Azure ecosystem.

To get started with Azure Resource Graph, you'll need to have an Azure subscription and the necessary permissions to access the Azure portal. Azure Resource Graph is available in all Azure regions, making it easy to access from anywhere.

The first step in using Azure Resource Graph is to create a query. This can be as simple as searching for all resources in a specific subscription or as complex as searching for resources that meet specific criteria, such as resource type or location.

You can use Azure Resource Graph to query resources across multiple subscriptions, making it a great tool for multi-subscription environments. This can be especially helpful for organizations with multiple teams or departments that manage different parts of the organization's Azure resources.

Azure Resource Graph is a powerful tool for managing and analyzing your Azure resources. It provides a unified view of all your resources, no matter where they're located.

To get started with Azure Resource Graph, you'll need to create a query. This can be done using the Azure portal, PowerShell, or the Azure CLI. The query language is called Kusto Query Language (KQL).

You can start with simple queries, such as getting a list of all your resources or filtering by a specific resource type. The Azure Resource Graph explorer is a great place to practice writing queries and see the results in real-time.

Azure Resource Graph is highly scalable and can handle large datasets. This makes it an ideal tool for organizations with complex resource environments.

To use Azure Resource Graph, you must have at least read access to the resources you want to query. No results are returned if you don't have at least read permissions to the Azure object or object group.

You can use Azure Resource Graph Explorer in the Azure portal to run queries directly, but you'll still need the right permissions. The query results are returned for the subscriptions you have access to, without any indication that the result might be partial.

Azure Resource Graph requires at least Reader permission on the resource you want to query. If you don't have this permission, the query will return null. Here are some ways to enable Resource Graph with the required permissions:

In the preview REST API version 2020-04-01-preview, the subscription list may be omitted, and the scope is set to the tenant by default.

To use Azure Resource Graph, you must have appropriate rights in Azure RBAC with at least read access to the resources you want to query.

Having the right permissions is crucial because no results are returned if you don't have at least read permissions to the Azure object or object group.

Azure Resource Graph uses the subscriptions available to a principal during login, so if you want to see resources of a new subscription added during an active session, you must refresh the context.

The context is refreshed automatically when logging out and back in.

If you're using Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell, the subscriptions you have access to are used, and if you're using a REST API, the subscription list is provided by the user.

If the user has access to any of the subscriptions in the list, the query results are returned for the subscriptions the user has access to.

However, if there are no subscriptions in the subscription list that the user has appropriate rights to, the response is a 403 (Forbidden).

To execute a query in Resource Graph, you need to have at least Reader permission on the resource you want to execute a query on.

Case sensitivity is a crucial aspect of querying in the Resource Graph. The default behavior is to return resource types in lowercase.

Using the "string operator =~" is a good choice when you don't want case sensitivity, as it will return true for "Hello World =~ "hello world". This is because =~ indicates we are looking for something that is "equal" on both sides, but not case sensitive.

The Resource Graph returns resource types in lowercase by default, but if you're requesting aliases, the result may contain uppercase characters as well. This is why using "=~" can be a good option.

Try running the following example to see the effects of using "=~" and "==" - it can help you understand the difference in results.

The wrong string operator can return different results, so it's essential to choose the right one. Using "=~" instead of "==" can make a big difference in your queries.

You can run Resource Graph queries in various ways, including Azure Resource Graph Explorer, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, and REST API. The query is structured the same for each language.

Resource Graph queries are limited to 1000 rows of output each, so if your query returns more than 1000 rows, consider re-writing the query to return a smaller subset of data. This applies to both built-in queries and ad-hoc queries.

To run a query, you can use the Azure Resource Graph Power BI connector, which runs queries at the tenant level but allows you to change the scope to subscription or management group. The connector also has an optional setting to return all records if your query results have more than 1,000 records.

To run your first query, you can use Azure Resource Graph Explorer, which is part of the Azure portal. This tool enables you to run Resource Graph queries directly in the Azure portal.

The results can be pinned as dynamic charts to provide real-time dynamic information to your portal workflow. For more information, go to First query with Azure Resource Graph Explorer.

You can also run queries using Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or REST API. The query is structured the same for each language.

Here's a list of the supported languages:

Each of these languages requires you to enable Resource Graph, which can be done by following the instructions provided by Microsoft.

Alerts in Log Analytics are a powerful tool for monitoring your Azure resources.

You can create alert rules by using Azure Resources Graph queries or integrating Log Analytics with Azure Resources Graph queries through Azure Monitor.

Azure Resource Graph alerts integration with Log Analytics is in public preview, so you can try it out and see how it works for you.

For examples of how to create alerts, check out the Quickstart guide, which shows you how to create alerts with Azure Resource Graph and Log Analytics.