If you are one of those Network administrators working in an organization featuring number of computers connected via network , then you must be very well aware of the fact that in a single day Microsoft Windows ® network generates an unmanageable amount of event logs.

In general, events logged are automatically stored on the basis of W3C logs (typically used in web servers) or Windows Event Logs generated by systems running on Windows OS. In addition to these, there are other types of events generated on IIS Servers and Apache HTTP Servers which are not recorded or monitored using default event viewer applications. The Windows event log analyzer tutorial will however enable users to know a lot more about event log types and various types of event log file formats including W3C Extended Log File Format, W3C Centralized Format, NCSA Common Log File Format, IIS Log File Format and Centralized Binary Logging. Furthermore, the tutorial discusses in detail about the features and capabilities that an ideal event log analyzer must possess.

Without doubt event logs and their management are the most important aspects in computer system management. Administrators tend to overlook many important aspects of event log management and analysis due to lack of well structured log analyzers. Inability to collect consolidated events from all types of configured systems and retaining them for future analysis, create obstacles in network administration. Usually, the problems that administrator face while managing events data are typically:

1. Distributed storage location of event data- Events data within logs is stored in different locations (Servers, computers and other equipment) all over the network.

2. High volume of event data- Hundreds of thousands of events are generated daily on a typical medium-sized network and all of them are logged.

Besides this, the other key issues that exist in relation to the management of events data using the default tools are:

3. Default tools don’t come with functionalities such as event alerts and event consolidation from network wide devices including firewalls, routers, IDS, etc.

4. Events browsing programs supplied by software in general have very limited filtering capacities that limits separating network critical information from the normal traffic.

5)Apart from system based events, default viewer applications are not built to monitor events of Internet servers (IIS) and Apache HTTP server, thereby restricting administrators to obtain information about web activities.

Such issues create many problems for corporations. The tutorial on event log analyzer throws light on different types of log monitoring systems and log analyzers that are built with advanced data filtering, consolidating and correlating capacities. Since the above mentioned functionalities are missing from utilities such as Windows event log viewer, appropriate tools and analyzers are required to perform network administration tasks from a centralized location using an easy and interactive interface.

Event log analyzers contribute towards log analysis since, with special applications, system generated and web based events can be retained for longer time duration. Furthermore, such tools also generate accurate reports with clear information about the event status that are important for future analysis, especially while getting compliant. Trusted log analyzers like Lepide Event Log Manager also have the advantage that process of executing internal network audits get simpler with precise information collected from events from all over the network.

The tutorial provides detailed information about such event log analyzer tools which can be used for the purpose of event intersecting, information systems security and executing Legal compliance. Users are made aware of future technology that is simple to use and which support fast event log processing from varied sources of events in a large network.