September 20th, 2008

LogLogic updates search and analysis tools for conquering IT systems management complexity

Posted by Dana Gardner @ 2:21 pm

Categories: Application Lifecycle Management, BI, Hardware Infrastructure, IT Management, IT Service Management, ITIL, SOA Governance, Software Development, Software Infrastructure, Testing Tools, Virtualization, Windows, business intelligence, datacenters, management

Tags: Business Intelligence, Analysis Tool, Analytics, Information Technology, Dynamic Range, Tool, Systems Management, Strategy, Pricing, Management

Insight into operations has been a hallmark of modern business improvements, from integrated back-office applications to business intelligence (BI) to balanced scorecards and management portals.

But what does the IT executive have to gain similar insight into the systems operations that support the business operations? Well, they have reams of disparate logs and systems analytics data that pour forth every second from all their network and infrastructure devices. Making sense of the data and leveraging the analytics to reduce risk of failure therefore becomes the equivalent of BI for IT.

Now a major BI for IT provider, LogLogic, has beefed up its flagship products with the announcement of LogLogic 4.6. By putting more data together in ways that can be quickly acted on helps companies gain critical visibility into their increasingly complex IT operations, while gaining ease of regulatory compliance along with improved security. [Disclosure: LogLogic is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

The latest version of the log management tools from San Jose, Calif.-based LogLogic includes new features that help give enterprises a 360-degree view of how business operations are running, including dynamic range selection, graphical trending, and real-time reporting. Among the improvements are:

• Index search user interface, including clustering by source, dynamic range selection, trending over time and graphical representation of search results

• Search history, which automatically saves search criteria for later reuse

• Forensics clipboard to annotate, organize, record and save up to 1000 messages per clipboard – up to 100 clipboards per user

• Active directory remote authentication with role-based access control (RBAC)

• Enhanced security via complex password creation

• Enhanced backup/restore and failover, including incremental backup support and “backup now” capability.

The latest release provides improved search for IT intelligence, forensics workflow and advanced secure remote access control. LogLogic 4.6 will be rolled out for the company’s family of LX, ST, and MX products, helping large- and mid-sized companies to capture, search and store their log data to improve business operations, monitor user activity, and meet industry standards for security and compliance.

I have talked extensively to the folks at LogLogic about the log-centered approach to dealing with IT’s growing complexity, as systems and services multiply and are spurred on by the virtualization wildfire. Last week I posted a podcast, in which LogLogic CEO Pat Sueltz explained how log-management aids in visibility and creates a favorable return on investment (ROI) for enterprises.

LogLogic 4.6 will be available later this month as a free upgrade to current customers under Support contract. For new customers, pricing will start at $14,995 for the LX appliance, $53,995 for the ST appliance and $37,500 for the MX appliance.