Vmware, Inc.

Erik Hinterbichler

Ron Oded Gery

Zhenmin Li

Chengdu Huang

The current document is directed to a virtual-log-file system that provides a browser-like display interface to users, enabling users to view the contents of log files. The virtual-log-file system assembles a virtual log file from the contents of one or more physical log files, applying filters and other processing to physical-log-file entries in order to generate the virtual-log-file entries logically contained within the virtual log file. The virtual-log-file system allows users to navigate, by scrolling, through the entries of the virtual log file, with additional virtual-log-file entries obtained from physical log files by the virtual-log-file system to support logical infinite scrolling in either direction. In addition, the virtual-log-file system provides for user selection of particular virtual-log-file entries as anchors that represent positions within the sequence of virtual-file-log entries, allowing a user to mark the anchor entries to facilitate visual recognition and to quickly navigate back to anchor entries after scrolling away from the anchor entries.

Virtual log file that aggregates multiple physical log files

Virtual-log-file method and system

A log analytics graphical user interface enables a user to dynamically extract and define a field from unstructured log data. The log analytics module automatically determines a definition for a field based on log text selected by the user. A portion of each log message is highlighted to reflect what the extracted field may be to assist users with understanding if input parameters are selected the intended log data. Changes to the definition of the field, by the user, may cause further highlighting that to indicate an incomplete or erroneous field definition.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Erik Hinterbichler