Log management and analytics startup Sumo Logic Inc. is the latest company to fall under the sway of software application containers. Today it announced a new unified logs and metrics feature for its platform that provides intelligence into applications running on the Docker Engine and Kubernetes.

Software application containers are used by developers to abstract their applications away from the underlying hardware, meaning they can build their apps once, package them in a container and run them on any platform. Docker Engine is the most popular software for containers, while Kubernetes is an orchestration tool that helps companies to manage them.

With the update, Sumo Logic said, it’s streamlining the data ingestion process for applications that run on Docker and Kubernetes so it can provide analytics and visualizations that illustrate their health. Essentially, it’s delivering greater visibility and intelligence into container-based applications.

Analysts say these capabilities are necessary because Docker and Kubernetes are still new technologies that are constantly evolving, and that means the way they’re monitored must evolve as well. Traditional information technology monitoring tools simply aren’t capable of doing the job well enough.

“Although traditional IT operations analytics tools bring visibility to IT teams, they don’t operate well in today’s complex and heterogeneous environments,” said Nancy Gohring, an analyst with 451 Research Inc. “Shortcomings include the inability to deliver the scale and intelligence across silos that customers need.”

The new capabilities add to Sumo Logic’s log management platform, which ingests, analyzes and correlates both structured and unstructured log data across a variety of cloud systems, networks, devices, third-party integration tools and other services. The company’s main rival is big data software firm Splunk Inc., which offers similar products.

Sumo Logic said it will be showcasing the new capabilities of its platform at Amazon Web Services Inc.’s AWS re:Invent event which kicks off today in Las Vegas.

Image: Sumo Logic