The Art of Monitoring

8 Logs and logging

In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 we looked at host and container-based monitoring. In this chapter we’re going to add the next layer of our framework: logging. While our hosts, services, and applications generate crucial metrics and events, they also often generate logs that can tell us useful things about their state and status. Additionally, our logs are incredibly useful for diagnostic purposes when investigating an issue or incident. We’re going to capture these logs, send them onto a central store, and make use of them to detect issues and provide diagnostic assistance. We’re also going to generate metrics and graphs from our logs.

We’re going to build a log management platform to complement the other components of our monitoring ...