In these times of cheap storage and increased processing power and network traffic, asking a question to "the log" becomes more and more similar to executing a data-mining query. Most of the times "the log" does contain the answers you are looking for, but they’re buried under countless useless entries, and scattered across countless, heterogeneous log files; as Jake Babbin, the lead author of this book, elegantly puts it, the answers you are looking for are patterns in chaos. And the news is that someone has to find those patterns. And it might be you. The purpose of this book is to show you exactly how to do that, tackling at the same time all the various problems pertinent to log generation, storage, processing, and reporting.

Whether or not you are the one charged with asking questions to "the log," after reading this book, you will agree that finding the patterns in chaos is actually not as daunting as you would have believed, and that creative solutions like the ones adopted by Jake will go a long way in making your job-and your quest-easier.