Short answer: Evaluate an incident-management tool for Microsoft Sentinel by testing whether it preserves Sentinel context while adding business context, ownership, response tasks, evidence, communication, and closure review. It should extend the response workflow, not pretend the SIEM and the incident process are the same thing.
Check the integration boundary
Ask what moves from Sentinel: incident ID, analytics rule, entities, timestamps, severity, evidence, and related alerts. Ask what links back to Sentinel and how updates, deduplication, failures, and permissions are handled.
Test the added response value
The tool should help the team identify affected services, asset owners, user roles, data sensitivity, business impact, recent changes, and suppliers. It should make the incident owner, next action, status, decisions, and evidence visible.
Check the lifecycle
Use a test case that includes triage, investigation, containment, communication, recovery, closure, and a post-incident review. Measure whether a responder can reconstruct what happened without searching multiple systems. Confirm that non-Sentinel intake can enter the same workflow when needed.
Review AI and data controls
If AI is included, check whether suggestions show their source, preserve unknowns, and require review for severity, ownership, containment, and closure. Review access, retention, export, tenant separation, and the data sent to the integration.
Practical example
Test the integration with one Sentinel incident containing related alerts and multiple entities. Confirm that the response tool preserves those references, creates one owner-led investigation, records actions and decisions, and writes back status without losing the Sentinel source.
FAQ
What should a Sentinel integration preserve?
Preserve incident IDs, rules, timestamps, entities, severity, evidence links, related alerts, permissions, and a link back to Sentinel.
What should the incident tool add?
It should add business context, ownership, actions, communication, decisions, and closure review without duplicating or obscuring the source.
Sources and further reading
- Microsoft Sentinel overview
- NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3: Incident Response Recommendations and Considerations