Over the past two weeks, I’ve addressed a number of issues with log management. Log management is an important component of every major security compliance regulation and with good reason. When done properly, log management can deliver a host of security and business intelligence values. Here are some of the topics we have covered recently:

• How to effectively use log management – In addition to the blog link, you can register to see the related webinar hosted by industry thought leader Randy Franklin Smith, “Top Five Goals For Effectively Using Log Management”
• Log management – IT’s greatest challenge?
• Addressing the insider threat

This week I want to address the diminishing returns for on-premise log management and why, for all but the largest organizations, hosting your own log management solution in your data center simply won’t be a practical solution. There are numerous reasons why it is getting even more difficult, but the number one driver is the simple data explosion that is taking place. As we pointed out in the blog post referenced above on IT’s greatest challenge, retained data is doubling every 18 months. Our recent episode of AlertTv further highlights the challenges of managing these vast amounts of data.

This fact is creating three major problems for organizations trying to use log management within their own data center.

• Performance – Most medium-sized businesses can’t afford to optimize their log management systems for fast search. The explosion of data has rendered search an almost unusable function when it comes time to extract information from their retained logs.
• Reporting – Companies routinely struggle with extracting actionable information out of their log management systems. Even if their system performance were acceptable, companies often have difficulties in creating reports to address security, performance and availability incidents.
• Cost – And this is the big one. Maintaining the people, software and systems required to meet compliance regulations and deliver value to the business is often beyond the reach of medium-sized businesses.

Cloud-based log management solutions can return the business value you expect from your log management system in a way that is easy to implement and cost effective. We will be addressing this topic and many others in a webinar later today, “The Dinosaur in the Data Center: Why on-premise log management is destined for extinction.” We encourage you to register and participate in this discussion.