Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic
Tags: azure, applicationinsights
Published: 2021-01-24 06:59:11

---
title: Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic
published: true
date: 2021-01-22 13:51:09 UTC
tags: Azure,ApplicationInsights
canonical_url: https://zimmergren.net/upgrade-application-insights-to-workspace-based-from-legacy/
---

 ![Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic](https://zimmergren.net/content/images/2021/01/appi-resourcemode-1.png)

Recently, Microsoft introduced a new option when creating Application Insight instances. A selection to help us choose between the Classic approach, or the modern Workspace-based mode.

In the Azure Portal, it can look like this when we create a new Application Insights today:

![Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic](https://zimmergren.net/content/images/2021/01/appi-resourcemode.png)<figcaption>Select the Resource Mode of Application insights when you create a new Application Insights.</figcaption>

If you have Application Insights instances _that were created some time ago_, you may want to upgrade to Workspace-based mode at some point.

A recent use case for me, for example, is to run cross-resource queries. This means I can request data from many App Insights resources from a single query. For Application Insights to support cross-resource queries, we need to be on the latest incarnation of the service.

Since the Workspace-based approach is targeting a Log Analytics Workspace, we get all the querying power from that. I like.

### Migrate to Workspace-based resource mode

> NOTE! Before you do this, please be advised that this is a one-way trip. You cannot revert this change.   
> Please also read the changes in schemas, which is important if you have a lot of queries depending on your App Insights.  
>   
> Read: [App Insights and Log Analytics Schema Differences](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/azure-monitor/log-query/unify-app-resource-data?AZ-MVP-4021705#application-insights-and-log-analytics-workspace-schema-differences)

In the Azure Portal, this is fairly straight forward. Navigate to your **Application Insights - Properties -> Switch to Workspace-based:**

![Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic](https://zimmergren.net/content/images/2021/01/appi-workspace.png)<figcaption>Switching Application Insights to workspace-based mode.</figcaption>

This presents you with the option to select your Log Analytics Workspace (hence the Resource Mode name "Workspace-based").

![Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic](https://zimmergren.net/content/images/2021/01/appi-convert.png)<figcaption>Migrate App Insights to a Log Analytics Workspace in the Workspace-based resource mode.</figcaption>

With that, we can easily migrate a single App Insights to the Workspace-based resource mode. Great success.

We can see the new workspace, and if we want, we can change it later.

![Upgrade Application Insights to Workspace-based Resource Mode from Classic](https://zimmergren.net/content/images/2021/01/appi-change.png)<figcaption>Application Insights workspace-based resource mode. Changing the workspace.</figcaption>

If you, like me, have a lot of resources to manage and maintain - there are more ways to migrate to the Workspace-based mode.

Read more about how to do it from the API's below.

- [Upgrade to the current Azure Log Alerts API from legacy Log Analytics API](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-log-api-switch?AZ-MVP-4021705)