There’s a lot of talk about the ability of AI and machine learning to augment digital transformation journeys by creating better customer experiences and empowering employees to make decisions using data. However, IT and business leaders can sometimes face analysis paralysis when confronted with this topic because it means something different for every business – and it means shifting an entire company culture towards a new way of working. One key shift is making use of machine data.

Here at Devo’s Cambridge, MA office, we’ve been steeped in news of national sports league playoffs for several weeks. The games are great, even with the stress and uncertainty of overtime, but it’s gotten me thinking about the professional hockey and basketball players, and how they’ve become as successful as they are.

Logs began with UNIX in the 1960s, partly to preserve the culture of close communication in programming. Luckily, that culture has held fast as programming and technology have taken many different shapes and evolutions over the years, and today, the idea behind logs is still to maintain data for correlation and analysis to meet enterprise security and compliance needs.