Manage an Azure Monitor workspace

2025-10-03

This article shows you how to create and delete an Azure Monitor workspace. When you configure Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus, you can select an existing Azure Monitor workspace or create a new one.

Note

When you create an Azure Monitor workspace, by default a data collection rule and a data collection endpoint in the form <azure-monitor-workspace-name> will automatically be created in a resource group in the form MA_<azure-monitor-workspace-name>_<___location>_managed. In case there are any Azure policies with restrictions on resource or resource group names, create an exemption to exempt these resources from evaluation.

Create an Azure Monitor workspace

Open the Azure Monitor workspaces menu in the Azure portal.
Select Create.
On the Create an Azure Monitor Workspace page, select a Subscription and Resource group where the workspace is to be created.
Provide a Name and a Region for the workspace.
Select Review + create to create the workspace.

Use the following command to create an Azure Monitor workspace using Azure CLI.

az monitor account create --name <azure-monitor-workspace-name> --resource-group <resource-group-name> --___location <___location>

For more details, visit Azure CLI for Azure Monitor Workspace

To create an Azure Monitor workspace, use one of the following Resource Manager templates with any of the standard deployment options.

{
    "$schema": "http://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "name": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "___location": {
            "type": "string",
            "defaultValue": ""
        }
    },
    "resources": [
        {
            "type": "microsoft.monitor/accounts",
            "apiVersion": "2021-06-03-preview",
            "name": "[parameters('name')]",
            "___location": "[if(empty(parameters('___location')), resourceGroup().___location, parameters('___location'))]"
        }
    ]
}

@description('Specify the name of the workspace.')
param workspaceName string

@description('Specify the ___location for the workspace.')
param ___location string = resourceGroup().___location

resource workspace 'microsoft.monitor/accounts@2021-06-03-preview' = {
  name: workspaceName
  ___location: ___location
}

When you create an Azure Monitor workspace, a new resource group is created. The resource group name has the following format: MA_<azure-monitor-workspace-name>_<___location>_managed, where the tokenized elements are lowercased. The resource group contains both a data collection endpoint and a data collection rule with the same name as the workspace. The resource group and its resources are automatically deleted when you delete the workspace.

To connect your Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus to your Azure Monitor workspace, see Collect Prometheus metrics from AKS cluster

Access mode

Similar to Log Analytics workspace, Azure Monitor Workspaces offer a resource-context access mode to enable more granular Azure RBAC resource-permissions for users querying data in a workspace. This provides the following benefits:

Users do not need to know which workspace to query for the metrics they've scoped their query to
Users do not need direct access to the workspace(s) storing the metrics for their resources

Delete an Azure Monitor workspace

When you delete an Azure Monitor workspace, unlike with a Log Analytics workspace, there's no soft delete operation. The data in the workspace is immediately deleted, and there's no recovery option.

Open the Azure Monitor workspaces menu in the Azure portal.
Select your workspace.
Select Delete.

To delete an AzureMonitor workspace use az resource delete

For example:

az monitor account delete --name <azure-monitor-workspace-name> --resource-group <resource-group-name>

For more details, visit Azure CLI for Azure Monitor Workspace

Link a Grafana workspace

Connect an Azure Monitor workspace to an Azure Managed Grafana workspace to allow Grafana to use the Azure Monitor workspace data in a Grafana dashboard. An Azure Monitor workspace can be connected to multiple Grafana workspaces, and a Grafana workspace can be connected to multiple Azure Monitor workspaces. Azure Managed Grafana and your Azure Monitor workspace can be in different regions.

To link your self-managed Grafana instance to an Azure Monitor workspace, see Connect Grafana to Azure Monitor Prometheus metrics

Note

When you add the Azure Monitor workspace as a data source to Grafana, it's listed in as Prometheus_<azure monitor workspace query endpoint>.

Open the Azure Monitor workspace menu in the Azure portal.
Select your workspace.
Select Linked Grafana workspaces.
Select a Grafana workspace.

Create a link between the Azure Monitor workspace and the Grafana workspace by updating the Azure Kubernetes Service cluster that you're monitoring.

If your cluster is already configured to send data to an Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus, you must disable it first using the following command:

az aks update --disable-azure-monitor-metrics -g <cluster-resource-group> -n <cluster-name>

Then, either enable or re-enable using the following command:

az aks update --enable-azure-monitor-metrics -n <cluster-name> -g <cluster-resource-group> --azure-monitor-workspace-resource-id 
<azure-monitor-workspace-name-resource-id> --grafana-resource-id <grafana-workspace-name-resource-id>

Output

"azureMonitorProfile": {
    "metrics": {
        "enabled": true,
        "kubeStateMetrics": {
            "metricAnnotationsAllowList": "",
            "metricLabelsAllowlist": ""
        }
    }
}

Next steps

Learn more about the Azure Monitor data platform.
Azure Monitor workspace overview.

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