Log Analysis from A to Z

Abstract

Using logs to detect and diagnose problems in software systems is no longer a feasible human process. The ever increasing amount of logs produced by present-day systems calls for more advanced techniques to enable log analysis. A great deal of log research has since then been focused on abstracting over log messages, clever analysis techniques and best practices for logging. An overview of the field, however, has not yet been composed. This makes it difficult for practitioners to identify what is relevant for them, and for researchers to determine interesting angles to explore. To this end we present a literature survey on the field of log analysis. In this survey we outline the different techniques and practices introduced by research in the field. We find that the results of the various works do not lend themselves well to comparison, and suggest future steps of research to overcome this lack of clarity. Furthermore, we suggest areas of improvement in terms of the applicability and feasibility of analysis techniques.