Overview
When logs live on individual servers or scattered container stdout streams, debugging a production issue means SSH-ing into boxes and grepping through files that might already be rotated out. I set up centralized logging so every service's logs land in one searchable place, structured and retained on a policy you control.
What's Included
- ELK Stack or Loki + Promtail — the right choice depends on your scale and budget; I'll recommend one on the discovery call
- Structured log parsing — logs indexed with useful fields (service, environment, request ID), not just raw text blobs
- Grafana log dashboards — searchable, filterable views alongside your existing metrics dashboards
- Retention & rotation policies — control storage cost with sensible retention tiers instead of keeping everything forever
Our Process
- Log source inventory — what's logging, in what format, and where it currently goes (if anywhere).
- Stack selection & design — ELK vs. Loki tradeoffs for your scale, plus parsing/indexing strategy.
- Implementation — log shipping, parsing, and dashboards deployed and validated against real traffic.
- Handover — a walkthrough of search, filtering, and how to onboard a new service's logs.
Who This Is For
Teams currently debugging via SSH and tail -f, or with logs scattered across CloudWatch, container stdout, and random log files with no unified search.
FAQ
ELK or Loki — which is better? Loki is cheaper to run and simpler if you're already on Grafana for metrics. ELK gives more powerful full-text search at higher operational cost. I'll recommend based on your log volume and budget.
Can this integrate with the Prometheus/Grafana monitoring setup? Yes — if you have (or are also setting up) Prometheus + Grafana Monitoring, logs and metrics live side by side in the same Grafana instance.
How long are logs retained? Whatever you need — we set retention tiers (e.g., 7 days hot, 30 days warm, longer in cold storage) based on your compliance and debugging needs.