Public Preview: Windows Services & Daemons support for Change Tracking & Inventory with AMA

We are excited to announce the public preview to track changes for Windows Services & Linux Daemons with Azure Change Tracking & Inventory using the Azure Monitor agent (AMA)

What’s New?

As part of this Public Preview, Change Tracking with AMA will support the following capabilities –

Tracking of Windows Services data – Customers can now enable Windows Services data tracking via Change Tracking & Inventory portal for Windows VMs. With the latest capability, customers can regulate windows services data collection at DCR (data collection rule) level within a Log Analytics Workspace. At present, the minimum data collection frequency supported is 10 minutes & default data collection frequency is 30 minutes.

Tracking of Linux Daemons data – As part of the public preview, changes will be tracked for all the Daemons at default data collection frequency of 5 minutes for Linux VMs. This data will also be regulated at DCR level within Log Analytics Workspace.

In product (CVC/CVA) feedback – Customers can now utilize the in-portal feedback mechanism to share their experience while engaging with Change Tracking & Inventory with AMA.

How to get started?

After onboarding to Change Tracking & Inventory with AMA either via Azure Portal or by using Azury Policy (to onboard at scale), Windows Services or Linux Daemons tracking will start automatically.

For a new customer (on CT with AMA), customers can click on Settings -> Windows Services -> Change Data Collection frequency (minimum 10 minutes).  For Linux VMs, Linux Daemons data collect will start automatically with a default data collection frequency of 5 minutes.

For existing customers (on CT with AMA), customers will have to conduct one time 2-click process to enable Windows Services or Linux Daemons tracking as shown below –

1. Click on the highlighted banner (shown in the screenshot)

2. On clicking the banner above, the following pane will emerge. You can select specific DCRs for which Services and Daemons tracking will be enabled. Click “Enable” to finish the process.

With the public preview, Change Tracking with AMA supports all the data types - Window Files, Windows Registry, Software data types, Windows services & Linux Daemons. The data configuration can now be regulated at DCR level now. Click here to know more about Data Collection Rules.

You can check out our complete documentation to get more details. We’d love to hear what you like and don’t like about this feature, and where you’d like us to take it.