Event log analyzer- A step ahead event mining techniques

Event logs play a very important part in today’s IT systems, where several applications, operating systems and network devices run on local or remotes systems. Event logging and monitoring has become a widespread practice with IT organizations for they provide resourceful information about the state of a system or a network. Event monitoring in real time environment has been a topic of research for many years and different tools and techniques have been developed to accomplish the task in an appropriate manner. Technologies such as data mining and data clustering have been most prominent in the area of event log analysis. However, both these technologies have suffered from some or the other shortcoming because of which the focus have shifted towards better and more platform independent event log analyzers.

Since event monitoring provides real time information on systems that helps in conducting event analysis, different event processing techniques are being used. Event correlation is one such prominent technique in event log analysis. In event correlation a set of events that takes place in a given time interval is interpreted and then processed for the task of fault management in a domain or a network. However, the tools used for event correlation are mostly platform dependent and difficult to deploy in small or medium sized businesses with limited computing resources. Event monitoring through most of the event correlation tools takes place with the help of algorithms like the APRIORI algorithm which are sometimes inefficient in correlating longer event patterns.

The need of event log analyzers have also emerged due to the inefficiencies of data mining techniques, which identify event logs on the basis of certain patterns. The frequent event type patterns monitored during event mining help in the analysis of potential risks or errors, thus aiding network management tasks. However, the existing data mining techniques have several shortcomings. First being that only frequent event patterns are monitored and the infrequent patterns are avoided. But, infrequent event log patterns are often the source of anomalous or unexpected behavior in the system or the network, because of which leaving those can prove to be detrimental in event analysis.

Efficient data clustering technology are seldom used to tackle this problem of data mining the events. Due to his very reason, the importance of developing event log analyzers which are capable of correlating monitored event logs and event streams without ignoring the infrequent logs has increased. Platform independent and easy to deploy Event log analyzer such as Lepide Event Log Manager proves to be the optimum solution for effective real time event analysis. Event log analyzers are considered better than the data mining techniques as these are platform independent and suitable for monitoring smaller networks.

With event log analyzer, it is possible to monitor the event logs of an entire network without the need of slicing the event patterns as in data clustering methods. It is possible to create and maintain a database to record the event logs of all the systems within a network. Upon analysis of the events collected in the database, faults or network issues can be detected either by identifying set patterns of events which do not occur in any pattern. Events can be searched for and filtered out on the basis of event IDs, event type, event source, etc to obtain the network status, therefore aiding in fault management and analysis.

Manage Windows & W3C Events easily and effectively.

Event log management and server management tools are widely used for an enterprise level security monitoring and administration. These tools offer solutions for data collection and event log analysis so that organizations get adequate response to potential security threats. With effective log management, it is possible to safeguard enterprise assets (logical and physical) and secure a network. Information gathered from security events, application servers, firewalls and routers help in proper analysis and understand the network behavior. Server management and log management techniques therefore provide a general idea of network security performance.

Since a large amount of data is generated from a network in the form of events, it becomes imperative to implement efficient management techniques. Event log manager tools help in this respect by offering solutions for rapid log collection, log correlation and analysis. The major functionalities that event log manager tools offer are as follows:

• Separates critical events from normal traffic
• Generates unambiguous reports for administrators to understand the event status and cause so as to take appropriate measures
• Helps in documenting the reports and analysis data to reflect on security practices and meet regulatory compliances

To meet all these requirements, a sever management or log management solution has to support the changing network topologies. Data processing speed of such systems must be high enough for quick analysis along with the ability to retain the events for a longer duration. In addition to this, the capability of collecting and transferring bulk of event log files without consuming much of the network bandwidth must be present in a reliable event log management system.

An ideal event log management service helps in log collection from a centralized platform and streamlines the events. Data collected from all over the network through logged events are stored in a database and information gathered from it is aggregated. The information thus collected gives details of security incidents at an enterprise level. This in turn gives administrators an insight view of the security system and policies and helps in understanding them in real time situations.

Effective event log manager tools offer a consolidated database which helps in event analysis, documentation and reporting. Moreover, with such tools redundancy of data can also be eliminated, which tend to impact the security infrastructure. Therefore, it can be summed up that proper event log management systems help in security analysis in the following ways:

• Makes security operations more reliable
• Aggregates critical information for faster security analysis

LepideEvent Log Manager has been developed keeping in mind the above considerations. This event log management software provides optimum log management solution for fortifying network security. Integrated with sophisticated features and functionalities, this tool is apt for gathering event logs from the network and storing the data in a large database. From this database, administrators can view the logs, filter out events, generate reports, save the data and email critical information.

With this tool, it is possible to view event logs of specific domains, groups or computers, segregate event logs on the basis of various parameters (event type, event ID, event source, event date/time, etc.) and process the events in minimum time. Query based event filtration and report generation helps refine the process of event log management. Moreover, since all the information gets collected at a central data store, the retention period of events increases that helps organizations in analysis and meeting compliance standards.

Summary:

Event log manager software helps administrators to ensure that there are problems or errors in the network and in the systems configured to a network. With event log management it is possible to analyze the behavior of system generated events so as to take counter measures to guarantee network security.

Piyush

piyush@lepide.com