Centralized Log Management
Perform event log analysis from within a unified dashboard
Need to know what’s happening across your IT infrastructure? SolarWinds® Security Event Manager (SEM) is a centralized device log analyzer built to gather log data from across your network. SEM is built to let you centralize logs from across workstations, servers, systems, IDS/IPS, firewalls, authentication services, and more.
To facilitate easier analysis, the platform can normalize and categorize thousands of syslogs, event logs, and other files. SEM is designed to leverage in-memory event correlation for real-time analysis without requiring you to scan logs manually. The integrated agent automatically sends the data you need to the SEM platform, which uses actionable intelligence to track user activity, security issues, and more. SEM also uses a high-compression data model so you can unify event log analysis without worrying about log storage limits or external hardware.
Easily track key metrics in real-time log data
It can be impossible for admins to individually check every error log on every device in their environment. SEM is built with centralized logging solutions that can enable admins to easily monitor their IT environments by tracking key metrics and change activity. Log centralization can also help enable quicker anomaly detection, even as your infrastructure grows.
With centralizing log management tools, SEM can help admins catch potential errors and suspicious traffic patterns by providing real-time visibility. The nDepth search engine in SEM can also locate specific event data as it passes through SEM Managers, allowing you to conduct searches of historical data and view the results in intuitive visualizations. The log analyzer is designed to provide information like source machine IP, event name and severity, time of insertion or detection, protocol usage, and more.
Scan log sources for significant change activity
SEM File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) features use centralized logging to catch a range of unauthorized changes, including modifications to log and audit files, SQL databases, configuration files, executables, and more. Filtering this data through a central logging platform can allow admins to easily configure SEM to respond to particular events in certain ways, such as sending alerts to admins based on specified patterns within the system log data.
SEM is also built to collect and normalize logs, which helps empower admins to manage event data by using configurable event filters and display widgets. Armed with this centralized event data, the platform leverages real-time event correlation capabilities to detect issues, send alerts, and initiate automated responses. The tool’s Active Response capability includes 700+ built-in rule templates with customizable responses to a wide range of log event patterns. Admins can even prioritize responses based on issue severity levels.
Catch security issues by utilizing a central log server
Event logs offer limited insights in isolation, whereas a management system with centralized log data empowers admins to take a proactive approach to security. By ingesting logs from dozens or even hundreds of sources—including firewalls, antivirus software, and endpoint protection applications—SEM is built to offer a more comprehensive overview of suspicious log patterns.
IT needs to be able to monitor users and catch anomalies in typical behavior patterns. What assets do users usually log into? What ports and protocols do users typically leverage? SEM log analyzer is designed to filter event log noise you don’t need, while comparing anomalies against a cybersecurity intelligence database of known threats, including bad IPs. SEM can also produce data visualizations like charts and treemaps that give you insights into the security of your entire system.
Run custom reports to help ensure security compliance
Compliance is more critical than ever, but distributed IT environments can make gathering the right information a complex task. SEM helps IT admins centrally manage and analyze the event log data they need to complete forensic analysis and compliance reporting, including sensitive data, authentication and authorization protocols, and device configuration changes.
SEM is also designed to help make it easier to demonstrate compliance with regulatory standards set by PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, and more. The platform’s reporting dashboard can generate reports for internal or external audits with its 300 built-in, customizable templates that can be sent directly to the appropriate stakeholders.
What is centralized log management?
Centralized log management is a comprehensive approach to network, data, and security management that uses automated tools to collect logs from across an IT infrastructure. Potential log sources include applications like antivirus programs, intrusion detection systems, and devices such as servers, firewalls, routers, and workstations.
How does a central log server work?
It’s important for admins to set up a centralized logging server that’s dedicated to collecting log files for use by a log analyzer. All manner of devices and applications in a server environment can serve as log sources. This includes switches, routers, firewalls, and workstations in addition to all operating systems and applications generating log data (such as user activity). All these managed devices and services in a distributed environment can be configured to send their log files to a central log server automatically.
Logs may also be generated in different formats. Standardizing log formats during log ingestion can help ensure that information like event name, source, destination, and timestamp is in place for all logs. A central log server helps normalize the differing log formats, so syslog messages, SNMP traps, and Windows event logs are easier to search through for specific components. An admin can also integrate an automated log analyzer tool to perform searches and other actions within a central log server, including regular security scans, which can help catch threats across the entire network.
Why use a central logging server?
While IT admins could manually search through data across thousands of log files on dozens or even hundreds of servers, when there are questions about security, user access, system errors, or configuration settings, centralized log management can make it easier to find answers. Centralizing the logging process can also allow admins to view log data from across all network servers rather than reviewing logs from individual servers.
By helping admins cut out hours of manual work, centralized logging can deliver immediate gains in productivity, especially if the centralized device log analyzer solution offers automated features for in-depth searching. Automated features give admins continuous, real-time insights into security issues and file changes across their logs. With the help of a central logging server, security and configuration management also tends to improve, as threats, bugs, and anomalies are no longer hidden inside a massive volume of logs.
What do centralized device log analyzers do?
A centralized device log analyzer is the part of the centralized logging system designed to provide customizable searching capabilities. Analysis, whether manual or automated, can be configured to focus on criteria to catch anomalies and generate specific results that help admins answer questions about security and system usage.
Using a unified dashboard to access, manage, and analyze cleaned-up log data, a centralized device log analyzer can offer admins the following capabilities:
- Store logs as needed, retaining key logs based on set policies
- View and manage logs without having to access the root server
- Search all logs at the same time, rather than searching systems separately
- Generate alerts and actions based on defined parameters
- Understand if configuration changes function as intended
- Compare log data against a list of known threats
- Easily generate and share reports on relevant log data
A centralized logging system may also offer other management features, such as automated alerting and response, reporting capabilities, anomaly detection, and more.
How does centralized log management work in Security Event Manager?
Security Event Manager is designed to provide straightforward, streamlined centralized log management even in complex environments. Log files can be sent from various systems, devices, and applications to the central console through SEM agents, with syslog and SNMP protocols, and more. SEM takes care of log aggregation by normalizing logs and standardizing event log data to help ensure easier analysis.
One of the key features in SolarWinds SEM is its Active Response, which enables real-time event correlations to support automated actions in response to user-specified events. Simply choose from built-in filters and start receiving alerts or triggering actions in response to specific patterns or events.
Another significant advantage of SEM is its 60:1 high-compression log file storage ratio, which is designed to prevent many of the problems associated with data retention. That means you can collect more log file data, helping ensure nothing goes overlooked. The tool’s focus on security is yet another benefit of using SEM centralized logging solutions. The log analyzer is built to compare potential threats to a regularly updated database of known security risks to deliver added protection across your system.
- What is centralized log management?
- How does a central log server work?
- Why use a central logging server?
- What do centralized device log analyzers do?
- How does centralized log management work in Security Event Manager?
What is centralized log management?
Centralized log management is a comprehensive approach to network, data, and security management that uses automated tools to collect logs from across an IT infrastructure. Potential log sources include applications like antivirus programs, intrusion detection systems, and devices such as servers, firewalls, routers, and workstations.
Achieve comprehensive system insight with centralized log management
Security Event Manager
- Aggregate log files drawn from dozens or even hundreds of log sources
- Utilize an automated log analyzer to gain actionable insights
- Leverage automated log collection to improve security and error management
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