Windows event log consolidation application

February 18, 2010 9:48 AM

Does anyone know of a good, free (preferably) or cheap application that consolidates w2k3 server event logs.

I have 16 VM servers and the free version of VM Ware and I need a way to consolidate the checking of event logs on the W2k3 servers. Anyone have any suggestions? If it isn't free/cheap, please let me know your suggestions anyway.

posted by aacheson to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

I'm sure there's a more formal Windows way to do it, but I did it at my last job by having the server's Event Logs output to syslog using winlogd. It made my admin job much simpler.

The syslog server was a linux box, but there is a free syslog server for windows.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:55 AM on February 18, 2010

Splunk is available for windows, and may be a good choice- it's free until you get > 500MB a day, and it can parse application logs as well as windows event logs.
posted by jenkinsEar at 10:05 AM on February 18, 2010

Oh hey! I had no idea Splunk had a windows version. Yeah, go with Splunk.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 10:06 AM on February 18, 2010