One of the biggest disasters out there that every online business wants to steer clear of is downtime. You won’t just lose revenue or customers but will also suffer damage to your reputation.

A good example of how disastrous the whole situation can be is Amazon. In 2013, its services went down for just 30 minutes. In those 30 minutes, it was losing more than $65,000 per minute. No matter what the size of your business, one of the most important parts of making it successful is making sure it stays online all day every day.

It is especially important to have your services always online if you’re running a Software as a service (SaaS) business. Many other businesses will be relying on your business to get by. If you mess up and your software is down for just a few minutes, you might end up losing a section of your customers forever.

Fortunately, there is a way for you to make sure your SaaS software stays online: SaaS logging. All you need is Log Management Software to tell you when issues arise in your software long before your customers even get a whiff of a problem.

Log management software allows you to keep track of everything that happens in your SaaS software, allowing you to find problems early enough and solve them in time so that the service you offer your users is uninterrupted.

Say you just released a new update that comes with a host of features. Log management software will keep track of everything and tell you if your new version is performing better than the older version.

Log management software allows you to analyze everything that is going on in your system. You get also get to troubleshoot the causes of performance issues and crashes more easily and therefore don’t have to spend too long trying to figure out where the cause of the problem is.

Why is Log Management Software So Important?

Log management software constantly scans your software for performance errors and issues as they arise. It’s like a heart monitor for your system and allows your development and engineering team to see these issues and sort them out long before they cause any downtime on the client end.

That said, how do you choose the right log management tool for your SaaS software? It all boils down to a few useful tips.

It Should Be Easy to Use

While log management sounds complicated enough that you feel like it’s something for your most senior developers to handle, it isn’t. As long as you get the right software, it should be easy for anyone to monitor the software and figure out what is going on.

You should go for log management software where the client end is friendly enough for beginners and easy enough to use that you can immediately see a summary of the condition of your software. The best log management software out there will have charts and graphs that give you visuals of all aspects of the running of your software.

Determine the Kind of Data You Want to Collect

Before you go shopping for log management software, you should figure out what kind of data you want to collect. Most log management software functions are the same from one software to the next. However, you should look for a solution that caters to the specific features and functions of your own SaaS solution. You may also want to get log software that supports collaboration if you have a large technical team working for you.

The Troubleshooting Capabilities Should Be Fast

All log software gives you the ability to track issues in your software. However, not all of them allow you to do it as easily or as fast. When looking for logging software, make sure you look for software that allows you to troubleshoot and find mistakes in your software faster. That way you can solve them much more easily and ensure your clients get a smooth experience.

Decide Between a Cloud Service or Self-hosted Service

This is another crucial decision you have to make as you hunt for the best logging software for you. If you go for self-hosting, you won’t have to pay a subscription for the software. However, you will have to manage the hardware yourself, and your development team will have to tweak the software constantly so that it integrates well with your application. Meanwhile, if you go for a cloud solution, you only have to pay an affordable subscription with everything else taken care of in the cloud.

The post Tips for Picking the Best Log Management Tool for Your SaaS Application appeared first on Ground Report.