The primary goal of IT Monitoring and Log Management is to provide the ability to continuously monitor your systems and measure performance. Measurement is fundamental to managing, and you cannot manage without measuring.

As in every aspect of life, in the IT world, identifying and resolving a small problem before it escalates into a crisis is a "best practice" that requires less effort than dealing with the impact and damage a problem that has become gangrenous.

Knowing that one of your server's disk spaces is running low, or that your SQL server has been receiving the same error every night at 9 PM for the past three months, is invaluable information. This allows you to take necessary precautions, resolve the problem before your system disks fill up, or find a solution to a chronic application issue.

You can start measuring your systems before problems escalate into crises...