Application monitoring and log management startup Scalyr today updated its platform to better monitor and troubleshoot issues in Kubernetes and Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudWatch environments. It also added new integrations and features to the platform to enhance collaboration and streamline workflows. The update will roll out before year-end.

The San Mateo, California-based Scalyr was founded in 2011 by Steve Newman, now its CEO, and Steven Czerwinski, now its CTO. Both Newman and Czerwinski came from Google. The company built its data management architecture, which the platform relies on for data analysis, from scratch with proprietary software.

Log management typically refers to the collection, storing, analyzing, and reporting of the large volumes of application- and system-generated log messages. "With the proliferation of the cloud and modern software architectures, including containers, orchestration, and microservices, a new approach to log management is necessary," said Newman. 

Scalyr’s technology provides log aggregation, system metrics, and server monitoring on any infrastructure. Its agents are installed in the server and collect logs and system metrics and immediately begin collecting data. It collects web access logs, system logs, application logs, system and server metrics, external probes, and more and compiles it in a centralized log management and monitoring platform. Scalyr also lets users visualize and analyze the raw data.

The company claims that its search speeds exceed 1.5 terabytes per second and can complete 96 percent of queries in less than one second.

Scalyr already has the ability to monitor Docker environments and other microservices and container architectures. The company supports all types of logs, including those from traditional application and network environments.  However, the majority of its customers rely on modern software architectures such as Kubernetes, said Newman.

Microservices and container architectures are often more difficult to monitor because there is an increase in application data, and traditional monitoring tools are not designed for the complexity of microservices. "We’re providing the performance and scalability to ingest, aggregate, and analyze this flood of information in real time," said Newman.

The added Kubernetes support enables DevOps teams to centralize and visualize logs on a cluster level. Scalyr groups logs based on the deployment, rather than based on each individual container, to give a holistic view of the applications and services running across containers and pods. Though, if needed, users can view the data on each individual pod.

Scalyr ingests and analyzes the log data to give an application-level view of the complex environment, so developers can solve issues faster. Its ability to centralize and integrate the data sources and monitoring capabilities is what separates it from other microservices performance monitoring tools.

The update also added support for AWS CloudWatch, which is an AWS monitoring service used to monitor applications running on its public cloud platform. The new integration with Scalyr, allows CloudWatch uses to import logs from CloudWatch into Scalyr. The benefit being that DevOps teams can develop custom alerts and dashboards, which provide a more holistic and centralized view of the applications, including AWS’ serverless computing platform Lambda.