Retrospective Log Analyzer

Retrospective is a faster and better way for IT people to manage their enterprise log data on either Windows, Mac or Linux. It was initially created by us simply because there wasn’t any other adequate tool available for the “real-world” problems which our Environment Management , Test and Operations Support teams were being confronted with for many years at different customer sites.

Whether you develop Software, integrate systems, have to carry out massive tests or are in support and struggle with problematic tickets, Retrospective enables you to instantly search through distributed logs and get instant data transparency. In addition, if you need to keep a “real-time” eye on different logs, Retrospective offers you a “tail” feature that conveniently merges the different tailed logs into one unified view.

With Retrospective there is no expensive and time consuming analysis of your IT landscape, building of centralised log storage or complex indexing but just a fast, easy and ad-hoc way to access to your data. Whenever you face an issue that may be reflected in your logs, Retrospective is the right tool to successfully find a solution within minutes. Cutting a long story short, Retrospective is a fifty bucks tool that can save you thousands.

Features

Search:
• Retrospective allows you to easily identify and configure thousands of huge log files and database tables located on many different servers in your network with as few steps as possible and to create “profiles” containing your personal groups of such data.
• You can easily drop local log files into the sources tab and almost instantly be able to search.
• Remote log files on machines connected by SSH can be easily added, configured and searched.
• Databases can be easily configured, tables are auto-recognised and you can chose fields to search through & display.
• Profiles are user-defined sets of log file data which are easily created for different platforms or groups of data sources.

Tail
• Tail (also called monitor or live search) is a function based on the Unix "tail –f" command which only displays new data written to a file.
• Look for all new data written to a file or create a text filter (e.g. an error code or an account number) which will then only display the new entries.
• You can plan a certain event to occur by performing a test or running your program and then you only get the specific results from that activity displayed in the Result Data Display.
• You can tail a database just by including the profile with the database define and starting a tail with or without a filter (e.g. account code).

Platform:
• It works on all 3 major desktop platforms, not just Linux - yes, you can tail a file on your windows machines!
• Retrospective can be used on Windows XP, Vista & 7.Both 32 & 64 bit versions are available.
• All 32 and 64 bit operating systems are supported.
• All 64 bit operating systems are supported, 32 bit on request.

Easy Configuration:
• Normally such tools are complex to configure but we have worked hard to make sure that within minutes Retrospective can be used.
• The File Manager takes you through configuration in as few steps as possible, quickly defining your profiles and data sources.
• The sources tab is an iTunes™ like tab that shows all your profiles (System and User) and their log files whether local or remote.
• For local files you can just drag and drop a file from windows explorer onto the sources tab and a profile with the log file is created.
• For both local and remote log files you can add whole directories or define a file mask by using a wildcard to quickly add large groups of files.

Easy to Use:
• Retrospective looks like one of your favourite web browsers - it has tabs, which can be dragged out to separate windows or to another tab in another window.
• In each tab is a search filter. In this filter you can specify whether you want to search or tail, and if you want to look for something and whether you want to search in a particular time frame.
• You can define search criteria such as a text field or a date range to limit the volume of data searched through (saves time). Once the remote search has been completed a local filter can also be applied as necessary.
• Explode all your tabs to individual windows (especially useful when doing multiple tails) and then implode all windows back to tabs in one window.
• Save your desktop consisting of your favourite searches and tails and reload it later or email it to a colleague.
• A complete history is kept of all your searches and tails and is shown in its own History tab.
• Save a particular search/tails as a named bookmark and reuse later from the bookmarks tab.
• After searching through a log4j file you can locally filter on package names (using a feature similar to autofilter in excel) so that you can quickly exclude what you are not looking for.

Perfoemance:
• Retrospective is fast. It searches faster than any other stand-alone log analyser on the market and it doesn’t require its own server, database or team of operators to display your log data (and there’s no daily Mb limit!)
• Optionally use the fast search which quickly checks file content dates and excludes them if they are out of the date range in your defined filter.
• To speed up the search you can limit the scope of your search by the use of easily defined filters.
• Retrospective has been optimised to do the fastest log search possible. Try it and see!
• Retrospective is a stand-alone product that doesn’t require a huge investment in either time or money.

Monitering and Other Uses:
• You can use Retrospective in many ways which are beyond the role of a simple log search tool.
• Use Retrospective as a simple monitoring tool – by defining your specific search criteria (such as error codes or log level = warn or error) and multiple tabs (which can be saved either as individual tails or as a complete multi-window desktop). You can be the first to know when a problem occurs!
• Need to collect usage statistics? You can define what you are looking for and Retrospective will collect that data and display the results. You can save your searches and run them regularly and save the results for inclusion in reports (as an attachment).

Cost Effective:
• Try Retrospective for 1 month with all its functionality for free.
• After this free months trial you can buy a license for 12 month's for just $58. During this year you get all new releases and functionality upgrades for free.
• After one year you can, of course, continue to use your Retrospective but can also buy a further year’s subscription for half-price which entitles you to additional upgrades for free and continued support.