5 Things All Log Managers Should Be Doing

CIOReview Team | Wednesday, 11 March 2020, 03:48 IST

5 Things All Log Managers Should Be Doing If your job responsibilities include log management, you probably already have a mile-long daily list of mustdo tasks. While that’s typical for any IT professional, Papertrail offers frustration-free log management, but within your logging duties, maybe you need to add a few more items to your necessary and routine chores.The good news is that the list of the five musts is below, as well as a short summary of each step and what you should know.

Keep All Your Apps Secure and Safe

An analysis tool should not harm the applications it monitors. Make sure all logged data files are properly configured and shipped in such a way as to avoid damaging the app it monitored.

Make Aggregating a Priority

It’s to your benefit to aggregate every log produced by the system. Don’t opt to delete redundant logs or those you or someone else determined to be worthless. Right now, you don’t know the value of all that information, so keep everything, store it, and analyze it later. Then you’ll be able to make a decision about what’s redundant and what isn’t.

Know Which Questions to Ask

The results of all your hard work as a management team member might be wasted if you fail to ask the right questions. Why are you logging in the first place? What patterns and correlations are you looking for? How will the data help you to be more effective in your job? When a fresh batch of fully aggregated, analyzed data sits in a report on your screen, what do you use it for? The point of those questions is to urge you to have a clearly defined set of goals for the end product of logging. After all, many of your co-workers have gone to the trouble of boiling a vast amount of data down into a readable report. How will you use it?

Demand Scalability

No matter what type of solution you choose for the wide range of logrelated chores, be sure from the start that the tool or paid program is fully scalable. If it’s not, you could be throwing good money out the window. This warning is especially applicable to startups and smaller entities that expect to grow out of their newness. It’s a fact of IT life that logged data grows in a linear fashion with companies. What might seem like the ideal free arrangement right now can quickly become insufficient for your management needs.

Opt for an Open-Source Solution

There’s a big debate going on among IT professionals about the pros and cons of free, open-source software solutions for logging. But if your company is new, small or mid-sized, there’s a lot to be said for choosing an open sourcemanagement program. Of course, the key advantage is the initial price: free. And while there are expenses associated with maintenance and other, later tasks connected with the initially free tool, these no-cost options are scalable and are backed by an ever-growing community of like-minded users who support each other quite well.

5 Things All Log Managers Should Be Doing

On The Deck

🍪 Do you like cookies?