There are multiple phases in the software development process that need to be completed before the software can be released into production. Those phases, which are typically iterative, are part of what we call the software development life cycle, or SDLC. During this cycle, developers and software analysts also aim to satisfy nonfunctional requirements like reliability, maintainability, and performance.
LogDNA Alerts are an important vehicle for relaying critical real-time pieces of log data within developer and SRE workflows. From Slack to PagerDuty, these Alert integrations help users understand if something unexpected is happening or simply if their logs need attention. This allows for shorter MTTD (mean time to detection) and improved productivity.
LogDNA Alerts are a key feature for developers and SREs to stay on top of their systems and applications, as it notifies them of important changes in their log data. However, with so many different workflows to account for, it was important to enable a flexible solution that could connect to any team’s toolkit.
Modern web applications are more reliant on the frontend than ever before. While there are many benefits to this approach, one downside is that developers can lose visibility into issues when things go wrong. When the application experience is degraded, engineers are left waiting for users to report issues and share browser logs. Otherwise, they might be left in the dark and unaware that any issues exist in the first place.
The LogDNA platform improves how teams use logs to help with debugging and troubleshooting. However, having fast access to actionable data isn’t the only value you can get from logs. There’s a lot of additional value in analyzing historical log data to understand long term trends. For example, customers can use log data as a way to represent audit events for user actions and benefit from visualizing them in a 3rd party software.
We set out with a plan this year to nurture and grow our developer ecosystem. In 2020, we launched our Template Library to empower joint users of LogDNA and our partners to have an out-of-the-box logging experience from every layer of their stack. As the use of these templates has grown, users have told us that they save them time from manually creating Views, Boards, and Screens, and helps them gain insight from their logs much quicker.
We built LogDNA around the idea that developers are more productive when they have access to all of the logs they need, when they need them. However, we also know that log management can get expensive fast. And, for anyone who owns the budget for developer tools, logs can be an unpredictable line item as you try to determine your monthly, quarterly or even annual spend.
LogDNA recently celebrated 5 years since our launch in Y Combinator and during this half-a-decade we’ve learned several lessons about balancing cost and scalability. As a founder, here are the top 3 things I wish someone had told me as we were racing towards success. The appeal of building a cloud-native application for a startup is a no brainer—it’s agile, scalable, and can be managed by a distributed team. Not to mention, it’s the cheapest way to get off the ground.
Three years ago, when we released Embedded Views into beta, we were excited to enable customers to share log lines in a customized way outside of our web application. However, it's become clear that the vast majority of our users prefer having the full functionality of our web application when exploring their logs rather than using an Embedded View.
With an ever growing list of infrastructure improvements, new features, and issues to debug, setting up your observability tools to keep up with best practices can fall down your list of priorities. There’s simply not enough time to set up new dashboards that can give you the visibility you need to be proactive with your infrastructure.
