Use case

Log retention planning for Thai SMEs.

Many Thai SMEs need practical production logs for troubleshooting, customer audit questions, and operational review. Nova can help structure the monitoring side while keeping legal claims conservative.

Focus
Operational retention for Linux hosts and selected application logs.
Local context
90-day retention can be discussed for Thai operational and audit needs.
Control
Select file paths and Docker logs deliberately rather than collecting everything.
Caveat
Legal compliance needs customer counsel review.

The practical problem

Small teams often have logs scattered across servers, containers, systemd journals, and old SSH sessions. During an incident, the problem is not only retention length; it is whether logs are searchable, scoped, and useful.

Nova's current feature set supports Linux host metrics, journal logs, selected file paths, and optional Docker logs, which fits many small production systems before they need broader observability.

How to start without over-collecting

Begin with system logs, a small set of application log files, and Docker logs only where they add clear value. Then estimate daily log volume before setting longer retention.

The best retention policy keeps enough data for incidents and audits without storing noisy debug logs forever.

  • Identify production servers and services in scope.
  • List log files needed for incident review.
  • Estimate GB/day before choosing 90-day retention.
  • Review logs for secrets and personal data before shipping them.