Log Standard for Event Messages?

The concept is sound. Armed with a log entry that has the "who, what, when, where" of an event in a standard format, IT pros should gain an edge in tracking down the root cause of system failures. But this standard is being brought to you by the same companies that fumbled the DMTF's CIM (Common Information Model) standard. And a log file doesn't diagnose, let alone fix, any problems.

Real "autonomic" computing will come when some enterprising-management vendor takes the time to understand the meaning of these multivendor formatted event messages and builds a management application that makes some logical guesses at the root problems.

Cisco may adhere to this new format, but the infrastructure vendor won't attempt to understand other vendors' gear or application events. IBM may be in a better position to do so with Tivoli, but IBM's knowledge of Tivoli systems hasn't resulted in any meaningful changes in Tivoli's network-management product in the last decade. That leaves the smarts where they have always been--in IT.

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