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Tiered Logging Strategy

What is a Tiered Logging Strategy?

A tiered logging strategy involves building a structured approach to collecting, storing, and managing logs. It defines them at different levels or “tiers” based on their importance, relevance, access needs, and retention requirements.

Why Is a Tiered Logging Strategy Important?

Not all data is of equal value. Tiering data based on relevance is a useful way to classify logs, making it easier to locate and retrieve specific or timely data.

Some data is frequently required and should be quickly available. Other data may only be retained for compliance purposes, is seldom accessed (if ever), and can be treated as at an archival level. Everything else will fall somewhere between these two points.

There may also be a cost component to how you access and store your data. If that is the case, then tiering allows you to prioritize which information receives faster (more expensive) processing services and what goes into cold storage at vastly reduced storage costs.

How Does a Tiered Logging Strategy Work?

Different organizations and vendors may use different terminology for the tiers, such as critical, real-time, priority, and, at the other end, archival, historical, or even cold storage. Regardless of the terms, the idea is to separate different types of data based on criticality, time sensitivity, frequency of access, or a combination thereof.

Here’s a breakdown of what a tiered logging strategy might look like:

Tier 1 – Critical Logs
Logs that are crucial for real-time monitoring, alerting, and incident response. These logs are often related to critical system errors, security breaches, or service failures and when immediate access is required.

  • Access – Frequent
  • Storage – High-availability, low-latency systems for real-time access.
  • Retention – Short-term, for immediate detection and resolution; may be archived for critical incidents.

Tier 2 – Operational Logs
Logs that provide insights into the daily operations of the system, such as user activities, system events, or API calls. Require continuous access, but not normally at the priority of critical logs.

  • Access – Frequent
  • Storage – Medium-performance systems, balancing cost and access times.
  • Retention – Medium-term, for troubleshooting, performance analysis, or capacity planning.

Tier 3 – Audit and Compliance Logs
Logs that track changes and access patterns, especially important for regulatory compliance, security audits, or forensic analysis.

  • Access – Infrequent
  • Storage – Cost-effective solutions; real-time access not needed.
  • Retention – Long-term, often due to legal or regulatory requirements.

Tier 4 – Archival Logs
Older logs that might not be immediately necessary but are kept for historical analysis, long-term trends, or backup purposes.

  • Access – Seldom
  • Storage – For historical analysis, long-term trends, or backup.
  • Retention – Varies; may extend for years.

Summary

Implementing a tiered logging strategy requires understanding the operational, security, and business requirements of the organization and the data it collects. Not all data is of equal value; using data tiers as a way to classify logs makes it easier to locate and retrieve specific, relevant, and/or timely information. By separating logs into data tiers, you can prioritize information for quicker access and processing. Less important or infrequently accessed data can be ‘frozen’ at reduced costs but takes longer to retrieve. User needs and data requirements vary greatly, so structuring data in tiers optimizes access and costs. Proper tools and solutions, like log management systems or SIEMs, will aid in executing this strategy efficiently.

Benefits of a Tiered Logging

The main goal of a tiered logging strategy is to optimize costs, manage data efficiently, and ensure that the right data is available and easily accessible as needed for various purposes, such as monitoring, debugging, security analysis, or compliance.

  • Cost Savings: By storing logs in appropriate storage solutions based on their access patterns, organizations can save significant costs. For instance, not all logs need to be in high-performance (and high-cost) storage.
  • Optimized Access: Critical logs that require immediate access are stored in systems designed for low latency, ensuring swift incident response.
  • Efficient Data Management: Log data can be massive. A tiered approach helps manage this data more effectively, ensuring that older or less frequently accessed logs don't clog up high-performance systems.
  • Compliance and Security: Ensures that logs needed for regulatory compliance or security audits are retained as required and are secured.
Want to learn more?
Download our White Paper titled Why Log Systems Require So Much Infrastructure & Three Ways to Fix Them where we’ll show how log systems like Splunk or ElasticSearch, by the standards of most data analytics systems, are easy to get data into and query.
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