Log Collector Tool for Servers

A log collector is a tool that aggregates the logs from different sources across your system, normalizes them, and offers a way to view the logs more easily. While logs are a critical part of your system and integral to everything from troubleshooting problems to optimizing network and device performance, they can be difficult to understand without a log file collector to help make them usable. The goal of a log collector tool is to help automate and streamline the manual log management process.

Your system is constantly generating a huge amount of log information, whether it’s in the form of SNMP traps, syslogs, or Windows event logs. This data can offer crucial insights, but only if you know how to make sense of it. That’s where a log file collector comes in.

The best log collector works as a syslog collector, event log collector, Windows log collector, and more all in one. It combines log data from across your network and systems, including from devices, applications, services, and hosts. The log collector then gives you a single place where you can access these logs, which serve as records of the events that have occurred within your applications and infrastructure over time. More importantly, with an all in one log file collector, the data from those various sources can be normalized, so your log data is in a single, easy-to-read format. This helps make it easier not only to read the logs in the first place, but to understand how logs from different sources relate to each other, which can be critically important when it comes to troubleshooting problems.

Without a log collector tool, you run the risk of not detecting potential problems within your system until they’ve already had a major impact. Also, without a tool to collect logs and troubleshoot issues proactively, you may only be made aware of problems once end users are already affected.

Using a log collector is simple if it’s part of an effective solution designed to act as a syslog collector and more. The first step is downloading the log file collector onto your primary server. Once the log collector is installed, you can enable log collection on your various systems and devices right away, so the log collector tool can begin aggregating and normalizing logs.

Log collector tools like SolarWinds Log Analyzer are built to make it easier to find the devices and systems that require log collection with the help of a Discovery Wizard to automate some of the initial steps of the log collection process.

When a log collector is installed and operating across your system, you can begin gaining insights for any problems that may arise. One way to do this is by dropping unnecessary event logs to help streamline your log viewer. With the devices, applications, and systems in your network constantly producing logs, your log collector’s feed can get cluttered fast. By establishing rule parameters that discard your unwanted logs, you can help ensure the relevant logs are easier to find. Another way to improve your log collector is by applying tags to your event logs based on anything from keywords to the event ID to help you more easily identify specific log activity.

SolarWinds Log Analyzer is designed to be an effective, enterprise-grade log management solution with a log and syslog collector alongside tools like a log viewer and log analyzer.

Log Analyzer is built to be easy to install. Once you select which devices and systems you want to be included by the log collector, the tool can begin collecting and normalizing the logs right away. You can also use the tool’s log viewer to see a live feed of your logs as they’re created and collected, or you can search through historical logs.

The powerful and intuitive filters in Log Analyzer can also make it easier to focus on the specific logs related to whatever problem you are trying to identify or address. By seeing logs collected from across your system devices and applications, you can more easily identify the full impact of a problem and zero in on its root cause, so you can begin targeting the source of the problem.

Using Log Analyzer, you can view logs in several ways to help you better understand the data:

• Filters: This shows you the filters you can apply to your log events within your log collector tool. By filtering your log events, you can find the data you’re looking for quicker for faster troubleshooting and root cause identification when problems arise.
• Events: This displays the current and historical log events that match your selected filters.
• Histogram: This shows you a graphical chart of the logs processed during a specified time frame. You can then click on specific parts of the histogram to see details of specific logs.

Log Analyzer is also an effective log and syslog collector and log management solution, with features to let you:

• Collect and consolidate logs from multiple sources: Log Analyzer supports logs from multiple sources including syslogs, Windows flat log files, Windows events, SNMP traps, and VMware events.
• Store your data for as long as you want: Log Analyzer automatically stores log data in a database for seven days, but you can easily configure this data to be saved for as long as you want.
• Filter your logs to find data fast: Use intuitive, out-of-the-box filters to narrowly refine your collected log data and find the information you’re looking for faster. The tool also comes with a powerful search engine to help you find logs faster.