Log analysis is a science that tries to make sense of documents generated by the computer. The process of creating these records is called logging.

The records are produced by network devices, operating systems, applications and all sorts of intelligent or programmable device. A stream of messages in time-sequence often comprise a register. Log can be directed to file, saved to disk, or directly as a network flow to a collection of recordings.

Log analysis is required to interpret the messages in the context of an application system, or configuration in order to make useful comparisons to messages coming from sources other than the log.

For more information: "Log Analysis".