Best Tools for Log Monitoring

To compile the simplest 'Hello World' program, the compiler needs a set of commands in a specific kind of format. Each command contains a rule which is also compiled when the entire program runs. And to troubleshoot the failure, the operating system records every event with a log message that can be monitored and analysed in the future.

Logging is nothing but recording the log messages into a file. For example, an application logging. With every event, the log messages are recorded throughout the time the application is in use. The Administrator uses the log records to understand how the application is being utilized.

At the same time, log monitoring is a practice to keep track of the log messages. The log management software monitors the logs and gives a glance at the records and the system so that the developer can have insight into the potential issues that can occur in the system.

It is essential to look at the logs because logs have an enormous amount of data of your system and program that can give you many insights about your application's behaviour. The logs can have information of errors, suspicious activities, failed compilers and much more.

The log management software alerts out the box whenever any complications are causing troubles. To check all the logs cannot be done manually. Thus, these tools keep an eye on each log and give you real-time reports in your inbox via emails or texts.

Monitoring the logs can be really helpful to secure your application. Poor logging and monitoring can cause many incidents, and manipulation of cybersecurity is one of them. The lack of monitoring makes it easy for attackers to breach the security and cause damage to the application.

The logging and monitoring can be done securely. Any unauthorized security-related events such as creating, transferring, or storing crucial data can be monitored and alert the system. An unobserved system and insufficient log monitoring can make the system vulnerable, making it harder to detect malicious events.

Monitoring the logs can prevent the downtime of your servers. The log monitoring software can detect the problems. This gives the engineers more time to solve the issues instead of finding the problems first and troubleshooting them. Thus, it saves a lot of time and money for your company.

Three activities take place in monitoring the logs:

• Collection of Logs: This activity included collecting the record logs, converting them and storing them for the operating system or Log Management tools.
• Log Management: Bifurcating the various kinds of data as per its sensitivity and priority. Making the metrics and creating access control to the logs.
• Log Monitoring: Sending reports, alerting, visualizing the dashboard.

• Failed Login Attempts: Failed login attempts are the events when something has gone wrong. The failed attempts could be harmless most of the time. However, there are many failures in a short amount of time; it could be an attack by hackers as well.
• Network Devices: With too much hardware interconnected and transferring an enormous amount of data in a fraction of a second, one should monitor the events taking place in microsecond between all the devices. Don't forget to monitor the firewall devices. It contains most of the security logs.
• Application Logs: Application logs can have their own log capabilities. The system can show the application logs, but it's better to monitor the application logs closely.

• Out of the box Alerting: It can monitor all kinds of records while gives you out of the box alerts for the triggered incidents. It provides insights into the real-time data.
• Universal Dashboard: With the universal dashboard, every single thing can be monitored with one glance.
• Managing Logs: It normalizes the attributes of log data from various sources and organizes data that can be used to analyse them across all data format.