Google LLC is adding a new service to its cloud that gives enterprises deeper, real-time visibility into their networks.

The idea behind Virtual Private Cloud Flow Logs is that customers can gain more insights into what’s going on with their networks in order to improve security and business operations.

In a blog post, Ines Envid, a Google Cloud Platform product manager, explained that VPC Flow Logs are designed to enable easier logging and monitoring of network events. Logging and monitoring are essential to network and security operations, he said, because they’re the only way to identify traffic and access patterns that could pose security risks.

“VPC Flow Logs allow Google’s cloud customers to track network flows all the way down to an individual virtual interface, in near-real-time,” Envid said.

With the VPC Flow Logs, network telemetry data logs are created in five-second intervals. These telemetry logs can be collected at various levels in the network, Envid said. For example users can collect telemetry data for a specific virtual machine instance, or a group of multiple instances.

The VPC Flow Logs capture data from a variety of sources, including internal VPC traffic, the data flow between virtual private clouds and on-premises deployments and flows among servers and internet endpoints and Google services.

Envid said that VPC Flow Logs can help companies with a number of operational tasks. These include monitoring the performance of software applications and troubleshooting any problems that crop up, and optimizing network usage and egress. The flow logs can also be used to boost security by helping to facilitate network forensics and real-time security analysis.

It’s worth noting that Google’s introduction of VPC Flow Logs is somewhat overdue. Google’s rival Amazon Web Services Inc., for example, has offered the same feature since June 2015, while Microsoft Corp. introduced Network Security Group flow logs on its Azure cloud since February of last year.