Contemporary Software Monitoring: A Systematic Literature Review
share
Contemporary software development strongly relies on software monitoring for different purposes, such as detecting abnormal behaviour or finding performance issues. These analyses are enabled by means of log data. The richness of log information has drawn the attention of researchers, who have put significant effort in software monitoring and log analysis techniques. Such knowledge, however, is currently spread. Moreover, we have no conceptual framework to explain the research field. In this paper, we perform a systematic literature review on logging techniques for software monitoring. More specifically, we explore the existing contemporary research on log engineering, infrastructure, and analysis. To that aim, we study 96 papers that appeared on top-level peer-reviewed conferences and journals. We then propose the Contemporary Logging Framework, a conceptual framework that maps the entire research field in four dimensions and 13 ramifications (i.e., research focuses). Finally, based on all the knowledge we gained, we propose a list of next steps that will help researchers in moving the field forward.
READ FULL TEXT