Creating an Azure OMS workspace in less than 30 seconds

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If you want to play with OMS it might be helpful and necessary to create new workspaces automatically (and remove them after testing). I am currently playing with the Log analytics http data API and need to create OMS workspaces quite often.
This is how I do it:

There are multiple ways of creating resources in Azure. The fastest way IMHO is to use a JSON resource template. Creating such a template is not always that easy, but a simple OMS workspace can simply look like that:

 {
 "$schema" : "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json",
 "contentVersion" : "1.0.0.0",
 "parameters" : {
 "omsWorkspaceName" : {
 "type" : "string",
 "defaultValue" : "MyWorkspace",
 "metadata" : {
 "description" : "Assign a name for the Log Analytic Workspace Name"
 }
 },
 "omsWorkspaceRegion" : {
 "type" : "string",
 "defaultValue" : "West Europe",
 "allowedValues" : [ "East US", "West Europe", "Southeast Asia", "Australia Southeast" ],
 "metadata" : {
 "description" : "Specify the region for your Workspace"
 }
 }
 },
 "variables" : {},
 "resources" : [
 {
 "apiVersion" : "2015-11-01-preview",
 "location" : "[parameters('omsWorkspaceRegion')]",
 "name" : "[parameters('omsWorkspaceName')]",
 "type" : "Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces",
 "comments" : "Log Analytics workspace",
 "properties" : {
 "sku" : {
 "name" : "Free"
 }
 }
 }
 ],
 "outputs" : {}
 }

If you want to dive deeper into OMS JSON templates have a look here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/log-analytics-template-workspace-configuration/

To create the workspace via Azure PowerShell, you simply need to

  • save this template as a JSON file (e.g. e:\OMSSimpleWorkspace.json)
  • Create a new ResourceGroup (not really needed, but simplifies dumping the whole thing after testing)
  • Create a new deployment based on the JSON template

The code I use looks like that:

 #Login-AzureRmAccount if needed
#Get and set some general variables
$RGName = read-host "Enter new Resource Group name"
$WorkspaceName = read-host "Enter new OMS workspace name"
$DeploymentName = "Deploy{0}" -f $WorkspaceName
$Location = "West Europe"
$OMSTemplateFile = "e:\OMSSimpleWorkspace.json"
$Subscription = get-azurermsubscription | Out-GridView -PassThru
Select-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionId $Subscription.SubscriptionID

#Create new ResourceGroup and new OMS workspace
New-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $RGName  -Location $Location
$RG = Get-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $RGName
#Deploy the JSON template and use the specified variables within straight in the PowerShell Cmdlet
New-AzureRmResourceGroupDeployment -Name $DeploymentName -ResourceGroupName $RGName -TemplateFile $OMSTemplateFile -omsworkspacename $WorkspaceName -omsworkspaceregion $Location

#Optional: Get your WorkspaceID and Keys for later use (e.g. sending data via http API)
$WorkSpace = Get-AzureRmOperationalInsightsWorkspace -Name  $WorkspaceName -ResourceGroupName $RGName
$Keys = Get-AzureRmOperationalInsightsWorkspaceSharedKeys -ResourceGroupName  $RGName -Name $WorkspaceName

 

The whole script should take less than 30 seconds to run and your OMS workspace is ready to use!

Once you are done with testing, simply dump your ResourceGroup:

 PS> Remove-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $RG.ResourceGroupName -force