Source URL: https://blog.cloudflare.com/logexplorer-ga/
Source: The Cloudflare Blog
Title: Cloudflare Log Explorer is now GA, providing native observability and forensics
Feedly Summary: We are happy to announce the General Availability of Cloudflare Log Explorer, a powerful product designed to bring observability and forensics capabilities directly into your Cloudflare dashboard.
AI Summary and Description: Yes
**Summary:**
Cloudflare has launched Log Explorer, a new analytics tool integrated into its platform that enhances observability and forensics by allowing users to access Cloudflare logs directly, with contextual information for quick threat detection and performance monitoring. This product reduces the complexities and costs associated with using third-party log analytics and SIEM tools, facilitating rapid investigation and response to security incidents.
**Detailed Description:**
Cloudflare’s Log Explorer is designed to improve how security teams and developers monitor and analyze logs, particularly in the context of security and application performance. The tool offers significant advantages over traditional log management methods and promotes seamless integration with Cloudflare services. Here are the major points of interest:
– **Real-time Threat Monitoring and Performance Optimization:**
– Log Explorer enables users to detect security threats as they occur while optimizing application performance without relying on external tools.
– Customers have reported improved management of firewall rules and faster remediation of issues due to immediate access to logs.
– **Cost and Complexity Reduction:**
– By eliminating the need to forward logs to third-party tools, users save on costs and avoid operational overhead.
– Instant access to logs means no delays in accessing crucial data necessary for security investigations.
– **Accelerated Investigations:**
– Logs are contextualized, allowing users to understand not only “what happened” but also “how it happened,” which speeds up the analysis process.
– Direct mitigation capabilities integrated with Cloudflare streamline the response to incidents.
– **Custom Dashboards and Queries:**
– Users can create dashboards tailored to their specific monitoring needs using a natural language prompt feature for easy chart creation.
– This allows for tracking various metrics, including potential remote code execution (RCE) attacks, along with correlation with other security events.
– **Enhanced Log Search:**
– Log Search provides a user-friendly interface for deeper investigation, featuring data-type aware filters and SQL querying capabilities.
– Users can save and share queries, facilitating collaboration among team members during investigations.
– **Proactive Monitoring with Custom Alerts:**
– Upcoming features will allow users to set customizable alerts based on defined queries, enhancing proactive monitoring of significant metrics.
– **Flexible Compliance and Retention:**
– Users can set custom log retention periods to meet compliance and audit requirements, making historical queries as accessible as current logs.
– **Scalability and Efficiency:**
– Log Explorer operates on top of Cloudflare’s R2 storage, allowing for efficient query handling through an innovative ingestion and compaction strategy.
– The underlying architecture uses Apache Parquet and Delta Lake to maintain minimal fragmentation and ensure high performance during log queries, handling data at Cloudflare’s scale.
– **Future Developments:**
– Cloudflare is committed to continuous improvement of Log Explorer, with further features planned to enhance user experience.
By consolidating these functionalities into one platform, Cloudflare’s Log Explorer positions itself as a valuable asset for organizations looking to enhance their security postures while ensuring performance efficiency, catering specifically to the needs of IT and security professionals in dynamic environments.