!rant

Who else uses Excel to analyze and make charts using normalized log data? (writes apps to parse and normalize them)

Or is there a better way to inspect server logs?

Hmm, I use it as a database (ducks)
Seriously. I like the colors and not needing an interlace for data entry.
Then it gets parsed, validated, copied to the real dB, and gets rewritten.
Heresy I know.
But works great for dhcp reservations, data that doesn't grow much.
Even DNS zones are generated from it. 😊

For server logs, I write perl filters, can't get much better for text.
Analysis is usually done also in perl, to keep it a standalone tool.

@nbamaral you mean you connect Excel to a database?

Yea so basically my apps normalize the logs into CSV and then I import the data into Excel so I can use pivot tables and filters

@billgates
No, I use it as a data entry tool, quite the opposite what you're doing, that's why I found it funny.
It just acts as a db, because it holds the latest version of Macs, serials, not really relying in the odbc capabilities, just a glorified form 😀

@nbamaral ah ok, yea thats how i use it when i need to itemize receipts for taxes

I use a elk stack with filebeat to parse log file ,logstash to filter the logs and store to elasticshearch and kibanna to have visualization