Last week we checked out SolarWinds' Storage Manager and we're back again this week to check out another one of their pieces of enterprise-grade monitoring software: SolarWinds Log & Event Manager. If you have hundreds, or even thousands of machines on your network it can be complicated to log events on all of them, ensuring that security remains tight in your business and performance is at its maximum.
→ Learn more about SolarWinds Log and Event Manager
The Log & Event Manager (LEM) supports literally thousands of input devices, ranging from anti-virus software and computers to switches, databases and firewalls. After you either automatically add devices on your network, or install agents, you're ready to collect logs and events (hence the software's name) from countless devices in your business.
The idea behind a LEM is knowing immediately when potential security or performance threats occur, and being able to deal with them as quickly as possible. Luckily with SolarWinds' product, you can actually automate the response to issues thanks to what they call "Active Response". For example, you could be collecting malware information from installed anti-virus products, and once a potential intrusion is detected, you could automatically have SolarWinds' LEM shut off Internet access to the infected machine until a technician has addressed the issue.
This is just one example as to how the Active Response technology could save your IT department time, there are lots of other things you could have automated once certain triggers have been reached. One thing included in the demo of the software is a trigger that automatically closes Solitaire if one of your employees decides to have some work-hours slacking off, but of course you can add your own rules to increase productivity and keep employees from straying from their work.
Log & Event Manager also does a huge amount of logging, which can be visualized in several ways around the software. You can view generalized reports from the Ops Center, which is essentially a dashboard of widgets indented to provide a quick visual representation of events and issues across your network, or you can delve deep into event history in the Explore and Monitor sections.
Just on the Explore section, which you can see in the screenshot above, you'll see how there is a very easy to see visual representation of events on your network including histograms and word clouds. To search further, you can easily drag-and-drop elements into the search area, making it easy to closely identify the source of issues and threats.
Also touted as a feature is the ability to compile compliance reports of machines in your business, simply by creating rules and then generating a report once enough data has been collected. This is done through a separate (but included) application simply called Log & Events Manager Reports. There is also the ability to prevent users from mounting USB devices on machines, along with tracking files to assure that your company's secrets are never stolen by simple external devices.
Like with Storage Manager, SolarWinds' LEM is flexible on price, offering affordable licenses depending on the size of your network and ranging up to 2500 nodes. There is also fantastic support from the SolarWinds team in case you are not sure about how something works in the product.
If you're interested, you can learn more about SolarWinds Log & Event Manager here, or download a free 30-day trial to test out the software briefly on your network.
This article has been sponsored by SolarWinds
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