Understanding Log Analytics at Scale

The humble machine log has been with us for many technology generations. The data that makes up these logs is a collection of records generated by hardware and software—including mobile devices, laptop and desktop PCs, servers, operating systems, applications, and more—that document nearly everything that happens in a computing environment. With the constantly accelerating pace of business, these logs are gaining in importance as a contributor to practices that help keep applications running 24/7/365 as well as analyzing issues faster to bring them back online when outages do occur.

If logging is enabled on a piece of hardware or software, almost every system process, event, or message can be captured as a time-series element of log data. Log analytics is the process of gathering, correlating, and analyzing that information in a central location to develop a sophisticated understanding of what is occurring in a datacenter and, by extension, providing insights about the business as a whole.

The comprehensive view of operations provided by log analytics can help administrators investigate the root cause of problems and identify opportunities for improvement. With the greater volume of that data and novel technology to derive value from it, logs have taken on new value in the enterprise. Beyond long-standing uses for log data, such as troubleshooting systems functions, sophisticated log analytics has become an engine for business insight as well ...