NetWrix Event Log Archiver is a free tool to automatically consolidate and archive Windows event logs across the network. The tool collects and consolidates event logs from multiple servers and archives them in a central location.

Features: You need event log data not only for troubleshooting purposes but also for security audit and compliance. Event log data is unique source of information for security, audit, compliance, troubleshooting. Native event logging mechanisms provided by Windows systems don`t have built-in consolidation, archiving and reporting features, required to effectively utilize event data and comply with external regulations like SOX, HIPAA, PCI, and others Event log audit data need to be archived for a fairly ling time for most of these regulatory maintenance. For some cases it is required to be retained for up to seven years. While PCI requires one year archival data, SOX & HIPPA needs the data to remain archived for 7 years. With numerous event logs in uncompressed format spread all over the network, with tons of events lost every day because of overwrites, represent a big security and compliance issue. NetWrix Event Log Archiver helps with audit log consolidation and archival. Event logs are usually collected on different servers; this utility will collect all the logs from these servers and archive these at one place centrally.

The archives remain in the original EVT format. Compression is applied though. You can import the data into a SQL database for detailed reporting also as an alternative. The tool helps you automate the management of all these data and organize them properly for long term retention. Security and compliance audits of not only SOX and PCI require these audit data but HIPPA, GLBA, NERC, FISMA, EU DR Directive and Basel II regulations.

Overall: This is a tool for a vital regulatory function. Quite handy.