Logblog: Logging Poll #4 "Who Looks at Logs?" Analysis

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Logging Poll #4 "Who Looks at Logs?" Analysis

Time to analyze my final 2007 poll on logs. In it, I asked who actually looks at logs at the organization. Here is what came up: results are here and also included below.

What can we conclude from this?

First, an obvious conclusion is in order! No matter how many times one can utter the word "compliance," logs are still most useful for mundane (one would hope!) system administration. Yes, indeed, sysadmins are the primary consumers of logs - yesterday, today, and - likely! - tomorrow as well.

Second, I am saddened by the fact that application developers have not warmed up to logs, at least not en masse (and not according to this limited poll...). I am guessing when they start thinking of logging when creating their applications, they will be more aware of the fact that you can troubleshoot the applications using logs ...

Third, incident response team showing that low is some kind of fluke, I am sure. Everybody knows that logs are indispensable during incident response. Yes, even if only a little logging was enabled or even logging defaults left in place, logs often reveal answers unobtainable via any other mechanisms.

Next poll coming soon!