Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

The next major version of the LogDNA agent is right around the corner, and we’re introducing some significant improvements. Most notably, we’ve completely rewritten the agent using Rust instead of Node.js. As we gear up for the release, we wanted to explain why we chose Rust for the LogDNA agent, the benefits that it offers over other languages, and how it can help you log faster. Rust is a systems programming language that aims to offer both performance and safety.

The use cases and requirements of a logging platform in an organization varies between teams and job functions. The problem isn’t in collecting log data (we are a logging company after all), but in deciding how to manage these logs for each team. For example, our backend developers need detailed, short-lived logs in order to build and test new features; while our infrastructure team needs lengthy retention periods for auditing and compliance.

Kubernetes is a powerful platform that has shifted the way modern software operates and scales over the past five years. It’s got a strong open source community and benefits from innovation from the collective. Also, some of its current shortcomings are: difficulties in installation, complexity, and customization. In many ways, Kubernetes is like the Linux kernel: it provides a framework for running software, but none of the tools. This is where Kubernetes distributions (or distros) come in.

Logging your Kubernetes clusters to LogDNA is already a breeze, and now the LogDNA Kubernetes agent Helm chart makes it even easier. Helm is the official package manager for Kubernetes. With Helm, deploying and managing Kubernetes applications is as simple as typing a single command. This makes deploying the LogDNA agent across your cluster absolutely effortless.

Learn the best Splunk alternative, what to look for in alternative solutions, and other factors like logging features, speed, ease of use, deployment, scalability, and cost.What Does Splunk Do?Since its first release in 2007, Splunk quickly became one of the leading log management solutions. Its focus on enterprise grade log analysis and security incident and event management (SIEM) made it the de facto choice for organizations generating large volumes of log files and machine data.

Cloud environments are becoming increasingly complex, with applications and even infrastructures changing constantly. Despite their dynamic nature, these environments must be monitored constantly for teams to ensure the stability, security, and performance of workloads running in them. Tracking these infrastructure changes is one of the most important—and one of the most difficult—parts of maintaining a cloud environment.

AWS CloudWatch Logs gives you full visibility into your AWS infrastructure, from individual workloads to the services that bind them. Monitoring these logs helps ensure their smooth and continued operation, ongoing stability, and performance. Integrating CloudWatch Logs with LogDNA makes it easier to parse, search, and analyze AWS logs in order to detect anomalies and troubleshoot problems faster.

One question that customers often ask is “why does the LogDNA agent need to run as root?” With IT departments and DevSecOps teams pushing to secure systems against cyberattacks, running a cloud-based logging agent as root sounds like a huge risk. While it’s true that you should avoid running applications as root, there are several reasons why our agent runs as root out of the box and several ways that we reduce your risk of attack.

Searching in LogDNA is designed to be as intuitive and straightforward as possible. Just type in your search terms, and LogDNA will return your results almost instantaneously. For cases where you need to perform a more advanced search, or where you need greater control over your search results, LogDNA provides a number of features that can help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Logging is an essential part of application development, monitoring, and debugging. There are countless libraries, frameworks, and services for logging backend and server-based applications. But for client-side applications, especially JavaScript-based web applications, it’s a different story. As we see increasingly complex code running on end user devices, the need to log these applications is also becoming increasingly important.