In Detailed about Top 10 Logging DevOps Tools

Introduction:

In this article, we will go through the importance of logging for any kind of an application, and what does it take to have a good logging framework put in place in your DevOps pipeline. We will discuss about quite a few tools today and also see what advantages these tools bring to the table, if they are put in your DevOps pipeline. We will also see the better patterns that we ought to follow for providing all the necessary details for someone who tries to understand if there are any issues and at the same time we will also try to understand how not to overdo something of these kinds where the crucial business data gets spilled all over your application logs using any such log frameworks.

Logging is a trivial part of the whole software development process, can sometimes be ignored or given the least priority. But let me tell you, from where (the experience and the background) I come, it means a lot to understand what caused an error and what are the sequence of events that caused this. This information is very crucial as the second occurrences of these kinds of issues can be comfortably be suppressed / resolved, if there is a right tool that takes up the responsibility of getting these details to the concerned people. Having said that, let us not delay any further and try to get through the applications / tools and also see their advantages as such.
Types of Logging DevOps Tools:

With that brief introduction into DevOps and also after understanding the importance of a logging framework, let us now take a look at the available software tools that can suite your DevOps pipeline. We will try to introduce you to the product and then also provide some of the practical advantages that are identified while using the tool as such. Without any further delay, let us get going with the various tools that we are going to analyze today:

1. Papertrail:

Papertrail is a centralized log management tool that helps in tracking down customer problems, error messages and application requests. It is a tool that is aimed to reduce the burden on the safety compliance side and also aimed to save business time, money. The same features are also provided in the mobile versions of iOS and Android as well for the businesses to check on health and safety requirements. The tool enables us to create and manage thousands of records with utmost ease and also in very lesser amounts of time when compared to the manual inputs of the same.

The platform can act as a hub to almost all the requests as like safety inventory, to-do lists and inspection records and etc. Alongside to that, the tool also handles to schedule the mandatory inspections by recording and also by sharing the useful information that it gathers with the respective teams. It has the ability to pass on the responsibility to the concerned teams with little customization from our end either in the configuration or extending the capabilities of the tool itself to make every of its attempts accountable. Folder access can also be restricted, making it easier to manage users and teams.

Following are some of the advantages of using Papertrail, let us now take a look at each and every one of them:

Advantages:

• One of the biggest advantages of this tool is its Mobility, as it allows users to update their safety records from anywhere using their mobile devices also.
• The iOS and Android apps work offline too along with the feature RFID, barcode scanning and photo services.
• The tool allows reminders on the forthcoming reminders and notifications can also be sent to the users as per our customization.
• Provision to generate reports, certificates and the like pretty quick and easy as well
• The whole safety compliance process is taken to the next level as the traditional paper based records can totally be surpassed and all the necessary details are digitally available.
• This tool has proven record of being successful in healthcare, telecom, adventure and emergency services.

2. Scalyr:

Now bringing our discussion to the next DevOps tool from the exhaustive list is Scalyr, it is a log management service which is capable of aggregating tons of loads of data per day and at the same time searching humongous amounts of data per second. In very simplistic terms, Scalyr is said to be a platform that is used for high-speed server monitoring and log management. The app has been brought to us (for common public) from the makers of Google Docs, and with it they’ve brought us the speed and ease of use to this robust server monitoring tool.

Scalyr quickly finishes all the queries fired to it within seconds and the plus point to this is that you don’t really have to go through the pain of learning a new language. Log aggregrator module of Scalyr takes up the responsibility of collecting logs (application, web, process, system) and manages their volume by filtering for all sensitive and noisy logs before these are processed to the server. The system then analyzes this data and summarizes the same to the end users as interactive reports, visualizations.

Following are some of the advantages of using Scalyr, let us now take a look at each and every one of them:

Advantages:

• Users do not really have to bother about the infrastructure for monitoring and collecting data, hence removes the extra burden of any setup (at all).
• Each of the Scalyr agents’ installation automatically takes up the responsibility of registering itself and collects logs, system metrics.
• You do not really have to configure Scalyr for collecting data all by itself, but bring in your own data (from various other sources) and upload these either using ‘fluentd’ or using Scalyr’s API to define monitors the servers directly.
• Your search gets lightning fast and more searches per second (to be very precise).
• Scalyr provides a wonderful opportunity to make sense of large amounts of data into clearer and simple but yet interactive reports.

3. Logz.io:

Logz.io is an open source log analysis platform with a combination of features from ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana). It is a simple, secure and a scalable service on the cloud for Organizations to take advantage from. It also provides advanced enterprise grade enhancements and features over and above the ELK stack such as the alerting, user control, archiving and pre-baked Kibana visualizations that are tailor made for specific log types. One of the best features that this tool comes up with is the ease in setting it up. It has the provision and also allows to ship logs as many as the Organizations feel that they are needed to secure the data, accessibility to the data generated and also on providing high availability.

Logz.io as a tool also applies advanced machine learning techniques to reveal critical and uncovered errors and exceptions in the real time along with actionable data for faster resolution. The tool also provides a range of analytics tools and optimization tools which help Organizations reduce the overall logging expenses as the data is tend to grow on progression.

Following are some of the advantages of using Logz.io, let us now take a look at each and every one of them:

Advantages:

• One of the greatest advantages with this tool is the ease with which it can be setup custom alerts based on customer needs.
• The other advantage that one can appreciate is that there is no need for us to bother about any infrastructure related issues on the ELK stack anymore with Logz.io.
• The tool provides cognitive and application insights along with an ability to analyze data manually.
• Has the provision to provide a read only dashboard with all the required insights for a customer to take necessary action points from.
• The tool in itself is very fast and the APIs provided are excellent.
• Search as a feature works faster and quicker with Logz.io than on Kibana.

4. Fluentd:

Fluentd is an open source data collector, which lets you unify the data collection and consumption for a better use and understanding of data. Fluentd attempts to solve the problem of collecting the data from various sources and also to unify the formats of all the log files that are generated by various systems of the whole architecture. There are two things that Fluentd does in order to solve the problem as explained earlier – It provides a unified logging layer to separate data sources from backend systems and the next to provide a plugin based architecture that allows us to pretty much do whatever we want with those logs.

Firstly with the unified logging it provides a single standard format for logs (in the JSON format) and secondly with the additional plugins there is a possibility to customize the view even further. With this, we now get machines to handle logs and add the necessary intelligence that helps in deciding when human intervention is required. There is always a possibility to deploy the same in a distributed system to handle all the log requirements.

Following are some of the advantages of using Fluentd, let us now take a look at each and every one of them:

Advantages:

• Most of the performance sensitive parts are written in C and the others are written in Ruby with the help of wrappers providing the flexibility and also extensibility to add additional functionalites.
• Fluentd is scalable and reliable.
• Fluentd tags data and also routes data based on tags.
• Provides a lot of client libraries for languages such as Java, PHP, Python, Ruby and etc.
• Stores the logs as in a unified log format as JSON (by Fluentd) and tries to structure all the data in JSON as much as possible. This allows Fluentd to unify all the facets of processing log data.

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Logging Devops Tools