Top Benefits of Cloud-Based Log Management

In the ultracompetitive times in which we live, organizations must leverage every asset at their disposal if they’re to survive and thrive. Log data is undoubtedly valuable, so having a proper log management strategy in place is vital for any tech team . Unfortunately, implementing a great log management strategy isn’t as easy as it sounds. It involves many factors, including the selection of an adequate tool. Today, we’re here to talk to you about the benefits of cloud-based log management.

We’ll start with a brief overview of cloud-based log management and log management in general. After talking about the importance of logging, we’ll define log management systems. Then, we’ll get to the main part of the post, where we’ll walk you through our list of six benefits of cloud-based log management.

Cloud-Based Log Management: An Introduction

As promised, we’ll start with some log management basics—cloud and otherwise. Let’s start by examining why logging is necessary.

Why Is Logging So Important?

People have been documenting the benefits of logging for a long time. Though there are struggles involved with logging, most tech professionals would agree logging is essential for any company. With the help of logs, developers can fix bugs in applications and DBAs can diagnose and fix performance problems in databases.

What Is a Log Management System?

Logging is an awesome tool for troubleshooting, but it can be much more, and this is where log management comes in handy. Companies with robust log management in place can aggregate, parse, and analyze log entries from many different sources in the organization. This allows them to obtain otherwise inaccessible insights. These insights not only help them prevent problems before they become critical but help them make better business decisions.

Having a log management solution is important, but picking one is often difficult due to the sheer number of available options. But don’t let this discourage you. By the end of this post, you’ll be more knowledgeable about log management solutions, and you’ll be able to make an educated decision.

What Is Cloud-Based Log Management?

Though there are a number of log management solutions you can use on-premises, a growing trend is to leverage cloud-based tools.

As the name makes clear, cloud-based log management solutions are ones you don’t need to install—instead, you access them as a service via the internet. Cloud computing in general is growing, made possible by increases in internet connection reliability and speed that would’ve been unimaginable decades ago. It’s no surprise this trend has affected log management as well. But is cloud-based log management worth it?

6 Reasons Why Cloud-Based Log Management Is the Best Alternative

As you’ll soon see, there are important advantages to adopting a cloud-based log management solution instead of a traditional, on-premises one. Though some of the benefits are somewhat obvious, you might find others quite surprising.

Cloud-Based Log Management Makes Troubleshooting Easier

Centralized log management through the use of cloud-based systems offers automatic and easy troubleshooting. These tools typically offer a plethora of alerts you can set up to notify you at the slightest sign of trouble.

This advantage becomes even more valuable when you add integrations into the mix, which we’ll talk about soon.

Cloud-Based Log Management Facilitates Monitoring

A related but different concept to alerting is monitoring. With the help of a great cloud-based log management system, you can centralize your logs in a single location, perform fast searches on them, and use powerful visualization capabilities to monitor key metrics.

Sure, monitoring is also possible when it comes to traditional, non-cloud log management solutions. But we’re in 2021, and many systems today employ distributed architectures. In such a scenario, cloud-based log management solutions have clear advantages. By making remote logging easier, cloud solutions can reduce complexity and cut costs. Centralized cloud-based monitoring systems also improve efficiency by eliminating the need for redundant tasks in the various on-prem solutions.

Cloud-Based Log Management Offers Less Complexity

Many cloud-based log management solutions—like SolarWinds^® Loggly^®—offer quick and simple setups, allowing organizations to quickly get started with log management. Compare this with using an on-prem alternative, where you’d not only have to make big investments in infrastructure but allocate professionals to manage and maintain the entire infrastructure. Factor in employee training—or even worse, hiring— and it quickly becomes clear that cloud solutions are the simplest and shortest path to log management.

Cloud-Based Log Management Is Scalable

Organizations nowadays generate a lot of log data. This can lead to performance challenges, leaving people waiting for a long time while the log management solution ingests or indexes their logs.

Cloud-based solutions, on the other hand, are made with scalability in mind. Most of these tools high performance for search and analysis, independent of your log volumes.

Cloud-Based Log Management Comes With Integrations Out of the Box

Cloud-based solutions often offer the possibility of integrating with third-party communication tools like Slack, helping you make sure the right people know about relevant incidents.

The integrations don’t just help with alerting, though. Cloud-based log management tools often allow you to integrate them with a plethora of other tools, facilitating collaboration between team members, visualization, and other benefits. From bug tracking to source code repositories, the sky is the limit for the possibilities of integration.

Cloud-Based Log Management Is Easier on Your Pocket

But the most compelling benefit of using a cloud-based log management solution is likely cost savings. In a sense, cost savings is a consequence of the previous points. Since cloud-based log management makes troubleshooting and monitoring easier, you’re able to fix problems quicker—or avoid them altogether. Fewer problems causing havoc means spending less money to fix the damage.

Because cloud-based log management solutions don’t require huge investments in infrastructure and personnel, their total cost of ownership (TCO) is way lower than the TCO of on-prem alternatives. You also save money due to opportunity cost; if you spare your professionals from having to keep the log management wheel spinning, they’re free to pursue other activities inside the organization with the potential to generate more value.

Get Your Head Out of the Clouds and Learn About Cloud-Based Log Management

Logging is essential for any tech team. A sound logging strategy often distinguishes between organizations that stay on top of problems and fix them quickly and ones that don’t.

However, logging can be much more than a mere helper in troubleshooting. Savvy organizations realize this and adopt a more proactive style to their logging approaches. By leveraging log management, they’re able to extract knowledge from their log data and use this knowledge to prevent problems before they happen. Even better, they can obtain business insights capable of helping leaders in their decision-making. To be able to use log management, organizations need log management tools, but there are many tools available. Picking an adequate solution from this plentiful menu isn’t the easiest task.

This is why we’ve come to your rescue in this post. We argue you should choose a cloud-based log management solution, and we’ve explained the reasons why. Additionally, we’ve covered some fundamentals of log management.  You now have a better understanding of what this concept is and why you need it.

Hopefully, we’ve also been able to show you cloud-based solutions are the present and future of log management solutions. If this is the case, we invite you to give Loggly a try by taking a look at its free trial.

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