Why Developers Love Cloud Logging Services
Uptime and performance are important for developers. When users encounter problems with apps, they lose their trust in the company. According to a study by Dimensional Research, 80% of app users will only attempt to use a problematic app 3 times or less before giving up altogether.
Without a way to detect and solve problems, developers would be struggling all day and night to ensure there are no issues with their apps and software.
Unfortunately, problems are unavoidable. Things happen, and that’s why systems need to be in place to save the day. When an application isn’t working correctly, developers take action by looking at their app logs. This is the closest thing to a roadmap to exactly what happened, when it happened, and how to fix it.
The problem with logs is they’re complicated. They’re usually saved in files on disk on a local development machine, and there hard to access across multiple servers. Without any clear search capabilities, discovering an error in a log could take a long time.
That’s time businesses don’t have when it comes to satisfying customers. In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at why developers love cloud logging services and why they should be the go-to choice of modern businesses.
Application Logs Defined
First, let’s understand what exactly application logs are and why they’re so important to developers. Though they sound complicated, they’re pretty straightforward. An application log is a file of events logged by a software application. It contains all errors, warnings, and informational events.
If you have a large application that runs on several servers, this becomes more complicated since there’s a lot more logging taking place. These log statements can’t usually be condensed to a single transaction, they’re hard to search, and they need to be archived for long-term saving.
This is where cloud logging comes in. Cloud logging works by solving most of the problems we’ve identified above, while also providing additional resources that are meaningful to developers and organizations alike.
Why Use Cloud Logging Services?
Because log files aren’t actually valuable on their own when it comes to understanding critical data, developers need a way to streamline this data in a way that’s easier for everyone. By sending these logs to a centralized logging service, there is a lot more that can be done with this information.
Search – With a cloud service, it’s easier to search for critical information. Knowing specific fields will make it easier to find any warnings or errors without wading through layers of data.
Customization – Sometimes you’ll encounter errors that are client or project specific. In this case, a cloud logging service can allow you to customize your own logs for specific monitoring.
Alerts – The best way to avoid issues with uptime is to prevent problems in the first place. With cloud logging, it’s easy to set alerts to developers about a potential problem or developing error.
Services like Papertrail cloud logging solution make developers’ lives easier. They take a lot of the heavy lifting out of monitoring and improving apps. Because no app is 100% free from errors, it’s always important to find new ways to trace performance and log metrics.
While logging files to text or saving them locally is an option, it’s not the best choice in this day and age. Your uptime and performance matter more than ever.
If you want to build trust with your customers and increase security, it’s time to make the switch to a cloud logging solution. Finally, view all of your logging data at once with a centralized dashboard and additional security features.