Introducing Warm Tier: Cost-Efficient Log Storage to Simplify Observability

These days, one of the most important decisions that organizations can make as it relates to their observability strategy is: “How much data do we want to retain in Hot storage to ensure we have everything needed for real time analysis — without running up associated costs?”

The reality is, for their immediate troubleshooting efforts, teams must bite the bullet and keep much of their data live, even though it can become very expensive. However, typically after a period of several weeks, most of that data is no longer needed within the context of maximum performance at maximum cost. At the same time, much of this telemetry remains vital for longer-term purposes — whether that’s for use in investigating customer support tickets, or for security incident response and other such long tail requirements.

It becomes challenging, then, to calculate and manage associated costs while supporting these requirements—from real-time access to long-term compliance and everything in between — all while making the most of your available budget.

At Logz.io we’re always listening closely to our customers and striving to deliver the best possible observability solutions, including the most cost- and use case-efficient approach to data retention. So when we heard that customers were looking for additional options around the ideal level of log storage to suit their changing vision, we listened and went to work.

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce Warm Tier, a new option for log storage and access that bridges the gap between high-performance Hot storage and our innovative, low cost Cold Tier. The idea is offering Logz.io Open 360™ platform users the most affordable, use case-centric approach for their semi-active data without sacrificing overall querying performance.

Warm Tier specifically enables customers to:

• Reduce Costs: Offering a cheaper alternative to Hot storage while still maintaining reasonable query performance.

• Improve Troubleshooting: Providing better query performance and deeper troubleshooting capabilities compared to Cold Tier, making it suitable for semi-active data that requires occasional access. 

• Extend Retention: Enabling storage of logs for longer periods than Hot storage, allowing customers to retain data for compliance and historical analysis, without adding significant expense or sacrificing querying in using Cold Tier or archiving.

• Optimize Storage: Ideal for users who need a balance between speed and cost, and generally a higher degree of granularity and control over their data/budget.

In terms of use cases, there are many that one could imagine where a mix of high performance Hot storage and the Warm Tier could provide useful, but we think this approach will be exceptionally important for requirements such as:

• Support ticket resolution: Where keeping more data in the Warm Tier empowers teams to get the full picture beyond the scope of Hot storage and complete support ticket resolution faster and with less friction.

• Security and compliance incidents: Where longer term context is often necessary, and sometimes required by law, to ensure that all the related details of an incident can be surfaced when necessary.

As observability teams focus on engaging the most cost-effective data management across their entire program, providing teams with the full slate of options — from Hot storage to Warm Tier to Cold Tier — further positions Logz.io as the provider of the industry’s most flexible, dynamic pricing models to support customers’ specific requirements

What is Warm Tier and How Does It Work?

Warm Tier is designed to handle logs that don’t require frequent access but still need to be readily available for analysis and troubleshooting. By enabling Warm Tier data, you can access historical data when necessary, making it a practical choice for mid-term storage. 

Data in Warm Tier remains readily accessible, but with slightly slower retrieval times than Hot storage, making it ideal for historical analysis and trend monitoring.

Customers can utilize Warm Tier for data that:

• Is relevant for medium-term retention and analysis

• Balances cost with retrieval speed, allowing less-frequent access at a lower cost than the Hot storage

Warm Tier is purpose-built to provide the performance you need for troubleshooting and analysis on semi-active data that requires occasional access, such as compliance, security, transaction, and network logs—unlike the limited cold storage alternatives.

It also supports longer retention periods than Hot storage, empowering customers to meet compliance requirements, optimize storage, and perform historical analysis and long-term decision-making, all at an affordable rate.

What You Get With Warm Tier

Customers who enable Warm Tier in their Logz.io log management instance will get the following benefits:

• Automatic Data Rollover: Users can set policies to automatically transition logs from the Hot tier to the Warm tier after a predefined retention period.

• Retain Query Capabilities: Data in the Warm Tier remains fully searchable, albeit with reduced performance, making it ideal for queries that don’t require fast retrieval and sophisticated visualizations.

• Enterprise-Grade Scalability: Designed to meet the needs of customers with growing data requirements, the Warm Tier allows for flexibility to accommodate large datasets for a longer time.

While other vendors push expensive storage options, Logz.io’s Warm Tier offers a cost-conscious, yet performant approach. It’s designed for customers who need to retain logs longer but don’t require Hot storage support.

Warm Tier brings a balance between affordability and performance, letting you extend retention and analysis periods without incurring heavier costs. Why pay for high-speed Hot storage when your data requirements don’t demand it? Warm Tier offers efficient, budget-friendly storage that aligns with your operational priorities.

This latest enhancement reinforces Logz.io’s commitment to helping businesses scale their observability needs while controlling costs. As organizations increasingly rely on observability to maintain the health of their applications and infrastructure, the new Warm Tier feature provides an essential tool for ensuring data is accessible and cost-effective over the long term.

Logz.io will continue to offer Hot storage and Cold Tier, along with traditional archiving capabilities, to address all of our customers’ varied use cases.

If you’d like to learn more about Warm Tier, Logz.io customers are encouraged to reach out to their dedicated Customer Success team. If you’re not a customer and want to learn more about Warm Tier, sign up for a demo here.