Reviving Any Level of Logs in ReplayDirector

A new development in the DevOps domain arrived this week in the continuous application monitoring, defect resolution solution called ReplayDirector.  Touted as the 'DVR of Software Production', ReplayDirector solves the "needle in a haystack" problem of issue tracking for enterprise Java.  This week, ReplayDirector 3.1 was released with the ability to recreate any level of logs from a running application, even if the data was not originally generated.

ReplayDirector works by constantly recording all aspects of the environment.  It doesn't record simple screen captures, but instead it virtualizes the original environment in which the defect occurred.  This removes the need to recreate the database, dataset, or any other systems in play when the problem occurred.  The ReplayDirector software brings information from Staging/Production, QA, Support, Outsourcing, and Development back to the domain where the bug can be fixed.  

In ReplayDirector 3.1, the feature called "Log Amplification" recreates any level of logs and allows employees throughout an organization to log less, because they can go back and look at them in any level of detail via ReplayDirector.  This greatly saves logging overhead and storage.



The SIEM marketplace knows a couple of other reasons why "Log Amplification" is useful:

The multibillion dollar security information and event management (SIEM) marketplace is focused on building products that store, monitor, report and purge event logs. However, many application logs, designed to provide insight into the behavior of critical applications, are often not generated in sufficient depth at the time of program execution.  Hence logging or SIEM solutions lack the raw material to accurately monitor and diagnose issues. While critical fatal and error logs may be recorded, organizations try to reduce storage costs and maximize application efficiencies by not saving the more voluminous, lower level logs such as info and trace logs—information critical to not only diagnosing functional or performance issues, but also security breaches and compliance violations.

ReplayDirector 3.1 also has a new defect searching feature that complements the Log Amplification.  With a web UI, ReplayDirector can search messages, logs, exceptions, and Replay markers to find defects.  It mines all the interactions that flow to and from the application (HTTP requests, web service calls, database activities, log messages).  These are captured with 100% fidelity.

ReplayDirector is also available as a hosted service.  You can get a free trial at replaysolutions.com.