Real-Time Log Monitoring Tool

Log monitoring is a part of the larger cycle of log management, which can be broken down into five steps. 

1. Log collection: First, event log files must be collected from all parts of the infrastructure and application stack.
   
2. Normalized: Once collected, the logs must be normalized, so they can be more easily searched and analyzed.
   
3. Analysis: One of the goals of analysis is to identify patterns and be notified of urgent issues in need of an immediate response. After your log aggregation tool organizes and indexes the logs, they can be searched and analyzed for signs of anomalous activity or patterns requiring attention.
   
4. Monitoring: Robust ongoing log monitoring is critical to successful log management. It's important to have a tool with messaging and notification systems—this feature allows you to receive updates about critical systems and respond in a timely manner.
   
5. Reporting: The last step involves making application performance data accessible to relevant team members and stakeholders, typically providing visibility in the form of reports and dashboards.

The utility of log files is due in part to different types of information the files contain. Typically, log files fall into one of five categories.

1. Information: These file logs record changes in the state of an application, and changes in entities within a given application. Informational logs focus on successfully completed operations, in contrast to other log types, which report on unsuccessful tasks. This makes them especially useful for determining exactly what happened in the application.
2. Application errors and failures: Depending on the application in question, an error could cause wide-reaching service interruptions internally and in customer-facing roles. Error logs therefore need to be investigated immediately so as to minimize any disruptions to end users and ensure your critical services remain accessible and operational.
3. Warnings and application malfunction: Warnings are similar to errors in that they indicate the application has attempted to carry out an operation and failed. If an application has a slightly longer than normal load time, then the log file should be a warning.
4. Positive security events: The successful completion of a security event will typically lead the majority of applications to generate a login response.
5. Negative security events

Furthermore, logs tend to include a baseline set of data points, regardless of the event type or source. These details include:

• 
  Date and time the event occurred
  
• Event description with applicable error code if available
  
• Active user profile at time of event
  
• Name of device where event occurred
  
• Event identification number
  
• Event source

Other SolarWinds log monitoring tools:

• Papertrail^™
• Kiwi Syslog^® Server
• Loggly^®
• Security Event Manager (SEM)

Related features:

• Log Collector
• Log File Viewer
• Log Analysis
• Log Aggregator
• Log Management
• SNMP Trap Receiver Monitoring
• Windows Flat Log File Monitoring
• Event Log Monitoring for Windows