Developing a Dedicated Log Collection & Management Plan

Developing a Dedicated Log Collection & Management Plan

When it comes to your network and server processes, one of the key ways your IT team will collect data and insight is through event logging. Collecting the right event data will help inform both essential processes and services, as well as your network security measures, which is why having the proper collection plan in place is key. At Pandora FMS, we offer a host of comprehensive log collection and network monitoring solutions designed to be easily customized.

Here, we collected some information for you about how you can use a log collection tool to develop a dedicated log management plan.

Different Teams Use Different Tools

Before delving too deeply into the details, it’s important to understand that since no two companies are alike, many will employ a variety of different log collection tools depending on their needs. Usually, the same log message will be collected and analyzed by a variety of different applications. However, in order to cut back on inefficiencies it’s often beneficial to utilize one single application that collects all of this data and presents it under one umbrella.

That’s where the log collection solution from Pandora FMS comes into play. Our solution is much more flexible than other aggregation tools provided by competitors. It will also make it easier to simplify your log collection tactics and make the data you collect much clearer. By deploying our log collection tool, you can develop a dedicated log management layer to place in contrast to various analytics solutions.

Reducing the complexity of your log collection tactics will help reduce stress on human and computing resources, as well as saving money on licensing costs for commercial data collection tools.

Getting Back to the Basics

Although we’re going to focus primarily on consolidating multiple log aggregation systems, there are also many organizations that still fail to see the importance of log collection systems, to begin with. So let’s quickly go over why log collection is crucial. Some of the leading reasons are because it offers:

• Enhanced security by enabling users to check central logs to determine whether a host was breached or logs were locally falsified or deleted.
• Added availability by making logs retrievable even when the machine sending them is down or offline.
• Increased convenience by collecting all of the necessary log information in one place.

Implementing a Dedicated Log Management Layer

Our intuitive software collects logs from many different sources and processes them and filters them, storing the logs for further analysis down the road. Unfortunately, not all logs come in a structured format that can be easily used in dashboards or for alerting and log analysis functions. Most will be received as text messages or emails, which are digested easily enough by humans but this does little good unless your processing event logs manually, which is rarely done these days due to the time and resources it involves.

By using the right tools, like the log collection tool from Pandora FMS, you’ll be able to turn both structured and unstructured messages into name-value pairs for easy analysis. After event log messages have been categorized into name-value pairs, further data can be added in real-time to help your IT team respond to security threats and other issues more quickly.

You can add key information to error log messages like contextual data from external files, geo-location insight based on IP addresses and filter messages. For example, you can filter firewall logs to determine if your network has been accessed by any IP addresses blacklisted as malware. With enriched messaging, you’ll be able to better determine what log data needs to go where.

Our Log Collection Solution

When you invest in the log collection solution from Pandora FMS, you’ll receive a comprehensive platform designed to store and analyze every type of raw data, from HIPAA and GDPR to ISO 27001. Our solution can handle terabytes of raw data so there’s never the chance that you’ll fail to close a possible breach due to lack of data.

Our log collection tool offers:

• Easy Analysis: With our log collection solution, you’ll be able to easily search through your data. There’s no reason to sift through complex templates or manually standardize information, you’ll find patterns and strings through the inspection of regular expressions.
• Affordable Long-Term Storage: Our storage solution boasts a lower price than other data storage alternatives, helping you save in the long term.
• Unlimited Reports: You’ll have unlimited gigabytes to search and display reports you’ve collected. You can find all the information you need in your network, servers or applications in a matter of seconds.
• Windows Log Collection & Event Analysis: Our log collection tool works within our monitoring software, reusing all your infrastructure and enabling you to collect Windows events and logs on any of your connected hardware, all without the need of purchasing additional licenses.
• Built for Scalability: If you plan on your company growing over the course of the next few years, our log collection tool is perfect for your needs. This is because they’ve been designed with growth in mind and can be easily scaled to monitor thousands of events.

Contact us for your log collection today!

Pandora FMS offers clients a safe, swift, and centralized application to manage all of your IT infrastructure. In addition to the log collection tool offered by Pandora FMS, we also specialize in SAP monitoring, remote control, issue management and monitoring, and much more.

Since 2004, our team of experts has been providing comprehensive monitoring software and that span borders and languages. We offer some of the most complete tools available on the market today. Our suite of tools is used by clients in more than 40 countries, and we have partners in South America, Asia, and Europe.

To learn more about how Pandora FMS can help your company streamline its IT processes, contact us online for a quote today or call 1 (305) 900-6683.