You are responsible for one or more Windows web servers and you have all these IIS log files that you want to make some sense out of.   If you have some basic SQL skills Microsoft is making available a utility called LogParser which does a great job getting in there and allowing you to query the files directly using some basic SQL syntax.   The feature I like the best is the ability to convert the data into a SQL table for manipulation via T-SQL.

Here is a sample of what I did (this would all go on a single line)

c:”program files””log parser 2.2″LogParser -iCheckPoint:myCheckPoint.lpc -o:SQL -server:localhost -database:IISLogs -createtable:ON “SELECT * FROM ex0810*.log TO IISLogs”

This short command line will read in all log files that start with ex0810 and import them into a table called IISLogs.  It will also create a checkpoint file so that if you run the command again it will not import records that have already been imported.

How cool is that?

Once all the importing is done you can leverage the SQL tables using whatever methods you need to.

If you need any help with stuff, send us a note at support at quarksoft.com.