Microsoft Sentinel Data Lake: A Smarter Way to Handle Security Data

Microsoft Sentinel now includes a data lake, and it could make managing security data a lot less painful.

If you have ever worried about the complexity of storing logs, managing multiple tools, the cost of retaining data, or the limitations of your current setup, this is worth a read.

In plain terms, it means that instead of using lots of separate tools or processes to collect, store, and analyse security data, the Sentinel data lake brings it all together in one place. That makes it easier to manage day-to-day security tasks, spot issues, and respond quickly, without loads of faff!

Why Should You Care?

If you are already using Microsoft Sentinel, you will know that managing data volumes and retention can be challenging. Many organisations have had to find workarounds to reduce or archive logs, which often adds unnecessary complexity.

Sentinel data lake changes this by offering a built-in, Microsoft-managed way to store all your security data in one place, with tiering options for archived or analytics data to optimise costs. No bolt-ons or multiple platforms. Just a single, integrated solution that scales with your needs and helps tackle retention challenges many organisations struggle with.

What Can You Do with It?

Not only does the Sentinel data lake make storing security data easier, it also gives you more flexibility in how you run your security operations e.g. being able to connect with other tools and data sources to get a fuller picture of what’s going on.

You can retain more data for longer, which supports better threat hunting, deeper investigations, and stronger compliance. You can run end-to-end threat analysis and use multiple analytics tools like KQL and Jupyter notebooks to run advanced analytics with built-in workbooks and visualisations, across a single copy of data. And because it is built into Sentinel, you can do all of this within the platform you already use.

It also means you are ready for what comes next. As Microsoft continues to invest in AI-driven security tools, having your data in the right place and in the right format will help you use capabilities like Copilot to deliver deeper analysis across your data.

How Quorum Helps You Get the Most from Sentinel Data Lake

Once everything’s set up properly, the team can help you get more out of your security data, like spotting threats more accurately, connecting signals from different sources, and looking at patterns over time to strengthen your security and compliance.

In summary, here’s what we provide:

Optimised Data Ingestion: We guide clients on how to maximise their data ingestion strategy, identifying opportunities to ingest from multi-cloud environments and flagging data sources previously avoided due to cost. All within a simple platform with reduced overhead.

Data Utilisation & Intelligence:

• Develop KQL queries and Jupyter notebooks  to quickly correlate and summarise data across ingesting platforms.
• Create dashboard visualisations for security and compliance context.
• Enable historic threat hunting and analysis.
• Conduct historic trend analysis using notebooks to identify patterns and anomalies.