Moving servers - disaster for your log files !

WebTrends won't allow mixed server analysis

[fom2001uk]

We're in the process of moving all our site on to a new server. The problem with that is when you have to report on say a 3 month period, and you have 2 months on the old server and one month on the new server.

Web Trends (our version) won't allow this.

Okay, I'm thinking we need to manually merge these log files together, and remove any information that tells WebTrends about two different servers.

Is this possible ? Has anyone tried it ?

My plan is to replace all server IPs (old server) with the new server IPs, and make sure the fields being logged all agree.

Sound feasible ?

Comments, ideas appreciated.

[Hannu]

Got the same problem.

The problem is that WT thinks you're running a clustered website - and therefore you have to buy a additional license :-(

I don't think you actually have to merge the log files.

I beleive WT looks at these log fields:

s-sitename s-computername s-ip

Maybe you could make a script (or whatever) that performs a search and replace in the old log files to make the values identical?

Just an idea...

[fom2001uk]

Hannu,

we don't have any "sitename" field in our logs, but we do have "c-ip" and "s-ip".

We did a search and replace on the "s-ip" (server IP address) but that hasn't helped with WebTrends.

I don't understand why you think WebTrends might look at "c-ip". Is this not the IP of the visitor to the website ?

How would this tell WebTrends that the logs are from different servers ?

I'd really appreciate any more ideas. We can't shell out for another licence. We've blown our budget already this year :-(

[Hannu]

don't understand why you think WebTrends might look at "c-ip...Is this not the IP of the visitor to the website ?

Yes it is and as far as I can see I didn't mention it in my post.

If you sticky mail me the first 20 lines of the two different log files I will look into it.

[fom2001uk]

Hannu, I've sticky mailed you twice (not sure it went the first time). Let me know if you get it okay. If not, I can just email you directly.

The "c-ip" I referred to in my post is what I assumed you meant by "computername". Maybe it's a different thing, I'm not sure. I can't find any computername in my logs but there is a "c-ip".

Clear as mud, eh :-)

[fom2001uk]

Hannu, have you had any luck with the logs ?

Our techie guys had a go at stripping out fields, changing the server IPs, and putting it all together. But to no avail.

WebTrends is too clever for us :-(

It still sees the data as coming from different servers.

[Hannu]

I performed an ordinary search and replace. And WebTrends ate it.

I just replaced the s-ip numbers in old.log with the s-ip numbers from new.log. I didn't combine any files or stripped out any fields.

I recommend you make a backup of all the old log fils, get a hardcore search and replace util (eg. www.inforapid.com - can proces all files in a directory and is freeware) and then make a ordinary search and replace like I described in the above.

Then you simply put all the new and old logfiles in the same directory and run WebTrends again.

I hope this helps... please post the results.