Comprehensive environments include many sources of observable data to be aggregated and then analyzed for infrastructure and app performance management. Connecting and aggregating the data sources to observability tools need to be flexible. Some use cases might require all data to be aggregated into one common location while others have narrowed scope. Optimizing where observability data is processed enables businesses to maximize insights while managing to cost, compliance and data residency objectives. 

As announced on 29 March 2024, IBM Cloud® released its next-gen observability solution, IBM Cloud Logs, to provide a way to accelerate your observability insights. The first step is pointing your observability log and event data to the service, or alternate target location. To complement this solution, today IBM Cloud is offering observability routing abilities for service platform and application logs with IBM Cloud Logs Routing. Observability routers on IBM Cloud help you define how your observability data can be routed to your target location. 

Routing logs is an addition to the activity tracker events routing and metrics routing capabilities on IBM Cloud. Together, the three routers give you the flexibility and control to define where your data is routed. IBM Cloud Logs Routing is a platform configuration capability available from the observability navigation section on IBM Cloud.  

Cloud deployment patterns are increasingly sophisticated and can span multiple regions or multiple accounts. Regulatory data residency requirements might also apply. Whether your routing needs are simple or sophisticated, IBM’s observability routers are ready to help you accomplish your needs.  

How it works 

The routers do this using two key concepts: 

• Rules: defined routes used to decide how data flows from a source to a destination
• Targets: destination instances

Logs from subscribed services are captured by IBM Cloud. Users define routes and targets to ship the data to an observability instance. Observability data is shipped to the instance where it’s available for insights. 

Send application logs to IBM Cloud Logs 

Routing for IBM Cloud Logs enables you to send your log data to the next-gen IBM Cloud Logs or the legacy IBM Log Analysis solutions. Routing logs makes it possible to aggregate logs from multiple regions or multiple accounts into one target location. For example, platform logs from Frankfurt are configured to land at a target instance in Madrid. When routing data to IBM Cloud Logs you can add routes from IBM Cloud Activity Tracker Event Routing and benefit from log and event data hosted in the same instance. 

IBM log agent can also be routed 

IBM Cloud is also releasing an IBM log agent to ship your application logs to your observability instances. The IBM log agent is fully IAM enabled allowing for end-to-end IAM control of your environment. When environments use the IBM log agent, log data is shipped through the logs routing service enabling you to add service-side rules to route data from the IBM log agent to the wanted target locations. In the event of a severe availability issue, you can adjust the route one time from within the logs routing interface and avoid having to change many individual agent endpoints.  

Routing logs definitions can be configured through the IBM Cloud Console, via API or through helm charts when deploying configurations as code is wanted. The new capability is available today in all IBM Cloud Data Centers known as MZR locations.  

Configure Activity Tracker Event Routing via the IBM Cloud Console 

Activity Tracker Event Routing is also receiving an upgrade. Beginning now you can define your route rules within the IBM Cloud Console where IBM Cloud Logs is a new available target. 

Finally, the activity tracker event routing service is deployed to all global IBM Cloud Data Centers.  

Configure routes in the UI then codify them via API 

The addition of the UI for Activity Tracker Events Routing enables you to build rules and routes and apply them to your cloud account. With the UI you can design the types of rules and routes you need for your environment then capture a JSON copy of the configuration and code your configuration with the API interface to Activity Tracker Events Routing.  

Consolidate logs and events to one Cloud Logs instance 

Activity Tracker Event Routing sending event data to IBM Cloud Logs gives you increased flexibility for observability insights. You can configure routes to send events to an IBM Cloud Logs instance dedicated for activity events. You can also configure activity event data to route to the same common IBM Cloud Logs instance as your application logs to boost your observability insights, more rapidly debug issues and maintain applications to your SLA goals.  

Configure your observability data today 

IBM Cloud is building up its observability portfolio to continue to support your needs. Routing capabilities are key to ensure insights and compliance on the platform integration. Both the routing logs and the Activity Tracker Event Routing capabilities are available today. Access the Observability on IBM Cloud platform.observability navigation section on IBM Cloud platform. 

Learn more about our observability portfolio on IBM Cloud.