Kubernetes has several key differences that push the limits of traditional application monitoring. Due to the distributed ephemeral nature of Kubernetes, most existing solutions fail to give the visibility we might expect, resulting in longer resolution times. Looking at these potential pitfalls can help guide us as we take a fresh look at Kubernetes management and monitoring.

When you need to troubleshoot an issue in your Node.js application, logs provide information about the severity of the problem, as well as insights into its root cause. You can use logs to capture stack traces and other types of activity, and trace them back to specific session IDs, user IDs, request endpoints—anything that will help you efficiently monitor your application.

The Graylog ExtendedLog Format (GELF) is a uniquely convenient log format created to deal with allthe shortcomings of classic plain Syslog. This enterprise feature allows you tocollect structured events from anywhere, and then compress and chunk them inthe blink of an eye.

Complex problems can often be solved with simple, practical solutions. That’s what our team at Kenshoo discovered when we realized that we needed a way to easily and proactively track specific log messages which indicate mission-critical events.

Logs have been around since the advent of computers and have probably not changed all too much since. What has changed, however, are the applications and systems generating them. Modern architectures — i.e. software and the infrastructure they are deployed on, have undergone vast changes over the past decade or so with the move to cloud computing and distributed environments.