4 min
IT Ops
Unlimited Logging: A New Chapter in Log Management
It’s no secret that log data is quickly becoming one of the most valuable
sources of information within organizations. There are open source, on-premise,
and cloud-based solutions to help you glean value from your logs in
many different ways.
Largely, organizations use logs for debugging during development, for monitoring
and troubleshooting production systems, for security audit trails and forensics,
and (more and more) for different business use cases that transcend product
management and mar
3 min
IT Ops
The Role of Logging in the Internet of Things
Let’s explore the importance of logging from IoT devices…
The IoT is defined as the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded
computing devices within an existing internet infrastructure [1]. In plain
English IoT is expected to enable the advanced connectivity of devices and
systems, which would involve machine-to-machine communications (M2M).
The IoT [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things] is still in its early
stages but some analysts predict that the IoT will boost the glob
4 min
IT Ops
What Is JSON? An Introductory Guide
Some days it’s hard to remember if Moore’s law applies to increasing computer
power or the number of technologies and breadth of terminology impacting our
daily work.
JSON, short for JavaScript Object Notation, continues to gain momentum in our
increasingly connected world. Reading this primer will give you a baseline
understanding so you can start having intelligent conversations about the pros
and cons of using JSON
[/2014/10/how-to-format-nginx-and-django-logs-using-kvps/] with your team.
3 min
IT Ops
Logging Activity in a Smart Home
The Smart Home concept is a subset of the Internet of Things(IoT). The core idea
is to connect “things” (digital devices) to each other to facilitate
communication, feedback, and alerting. In essence connecting the physical world
with the digital world. We are installing new sensors and actuators into
everyday devices that is leading to new IoT and Smart Home services by
integrating existing solutions and technologies.
The IoT network is growing at an unbelievable pace.
From just 2 billion obje
3 min
IT Ops
Shared Services: The Unicorn Every DevOps is Looking For
In my hunt for the mysterious DevOps practice, I’ve been let down. DevOps are
hard to find. When you find them, they do not exactly do what you think they
should do. Some DevOps teams only execute on automation for dev; while others
are operations folks with a new name; and still others are internal consultants
helping operations and developers (but not actually doing the work).
In my DevOps scavenger hunt I have identified a new type of creature; shared
services (aka the unicorn)
What I have
4 min
IT Ops
4 Alerts You Need In Case System Events Stop Occurring
“Silence is golden”
This is not always true, especially when something you were expecting to happen*
doesn’t* happen.
However, this is true when you have a system or a service you are trying to
maintain and things stop happening or go quiet.
We recently developed a new service — Inactivity Alerting
[https://logentries.com/product/inactivity-alerting/] — to help you with this
common challenge and, as you might expect, it fires alerts when there is noted
inactivity around a specific log or eve
4 min
IT Ops
How to Format Nginx and Django Logs Using KVPs
Interested in learning a couple insider tips to gain more value from your
logs using additional structure?
Specifically, we will show how to easily introduce key-value pair (KVP) format
on Nginx and Django logs.
Of course, the approach is not restricted to those two types of logs, and can be
applied to numerous applications.
Previously, our Head of Product, Marc Concannon explained how logging
information in JSON format [/2014/09/3-common-problems-solved-with-json/]makes
it possible to leverag
3 min
IT Ops
Logs: The Most Fine-grained Data Source
As co-founder of Logentries I am often asked – “Why Logs?” And I have to admit,
upon first impression, ‘log management
[https://logentries.com/doc/log-management/] and analytics’ does not seem like
the sexiest space 🙂 However at Logentries [http://logentries.com]we are here to
redefine that space, to provide a solution to access, manage and understand your
log data that is easy to use, cost effective and intelligent (i.e. it does the
hard work so you don’t have to). But that being said it sti
2 min
IT Ops
How to Master the Installation of the Windows Agent
Over the past month we have been updating the LogentriesWindows Agent
[https://logentries.com/doc/windows-agent/] to make it more powerful for our
growing customers needs. One particular area we felt needed updating was the
Command Line capabilities of the Windows Agent
[https://logentries.com/doc/windows-agent/].
Logentries is now proud to announce that you now have even more ways to install
our Windows Agent to your environment.
[/content/images/le-img/2014/10/Windows-Agent-Mastering-the-In
5 min
IT Ops
In the Log Management World: Are you a Fox or Hedgehog?
I’ve recently been reading Nate Silver’s book, “The Signal and the Noise.” In
the book, Silver looks at a number of areas where predictions have been made and
considers how successful they have been, as well as the reasons why they have
been accurate (or not).
I couldn’t help but draw the similarities how most companies use log management
[https://www.rapid7.com/fundamentals/what-is-log-management/] tools today.
Silver’s particular interests are political forecasting (see
www.fivethirtyeight
3 min
IT Ops
Heroku Buttons Rock!
As one of Heroku’s beta users I had the chance to check out the new Heroku
button gallery [https://buttons.heroku.com/] last week. I must say I was very
pleasantly surprised.
Over the past few years, it’s fair to say Heroku have nailed their PAAS
offering. They are one of the few PAAS providers to truly succeed in providing
developers both an easy to deploy platform, and a full ecosystem of add ons.
This allows you as a developer to get on with what you do best.
Yes, you can actually spend you
3 min
IT Ops
Logging from PHP Web Frameworks like Laravel
So what is Laravel [http://laravel.com/]?
Laravel is a relatively new MVC web framework for PHP that was released in 2012.
It’s also the most popular PHP project on Github
[https://github.com/laravel/laravel] at the time of this post. Like many web
frameworks, Laravel boasts an easy learning-curve to get an app up and
running. This was certainly the case when I used it.
While this post is focusing on logging in Laravel, its applicable to other php
web frameworks, like Symfony2 [http://symfony.c
5 min
IT Ops
Cloud Platforms vs. On-Prem - A Guide for the Rest of Us
Working for Cloud based businesses for the greater part of a decade now, one
question invariably comes up:
“Why should I move my data to the cloud?”
There are always a few objections that come up as well. Following-up on a
previous blog post where we discussed the business benefits of cloud computing
[/2014/09/7-benefits-of-cloud-based-computing-for-non-technical-techies/], this
will be a discussion on the most common objections and how to have a
conversation around cloud and on-premise envir
2 min
IT Ops
E2N Reduces Anxiety and Increases Customer Satisfaction with Log Data
E2NGastro [http://gastro.e2n.de/] is a small startup in Germany, who provide a
SaaS platform for restaurant management, staff management, timekeeping, and work
schedules (among other services). We spoke with their CEO/CTO, Bjorn Raupach,
who shared the history behind their use of log data.
[/content/images/le-img/2014/09/E2N-product.jpg]
Before using a log management tool [https://logentries.com/doc/log-management/]
, E2N had log files, but they were difficult to locate.
To access them, you had
4 min
IT Ops
3 Common Problems Solved With JSON
One of the most common questions we get asked by customers is:
“What’s the best way to log my data?”
My answer is always:
“log using JSON format wherever possible.”
The next question we often get asked – (but not as much)…
Yeah JSON, …Hmmm, what is JSON again?
So JSON is:JavaScriptObjectNotation.
But put simply, this is a way that data can be stored in a structured format,
where each piece of data will usually have an identifier (known as a key) and a
value (which can be in multiple forma