eIQnetworks announced the availability of the new Open Log Format (OLF) specification - an open source event logging standard. The company hopes the new standard will be adopted to facilitate easier aggregation of security log information.

As an open source specification OLF is available for use by any vendor or organization at no cost. So far companies several companies, including Astaro, Clavister, Cyberoam, iPolicy Networks, Secure Computing and Top Layer Networks, have pledged support for OLF.

"Security and compliance initiatives are now a permanent, bottom-line business concern, fueled by recent large-scale data breaches and resulting fines," said Jon Oltsik, senior analyst, Information Security at Enterprise Strategy Group. "OLF can help advance compliance management by enabling organizations to easily incorporate and manage critical security log information, enhance IT security management, combat threats and meet regulatory mandates."

OLF includes provisions for a standard log file header and standard log line parameter formatting including a provision for error messages. A typical log line can contain several dozen different types of data, each separated by tab characters. Data include device IDs, event type, priority codes, IP addresses, and more. eIQnetworks said that while OLF is designed for use by network devices, it can be used for events not related to a network.

The OLF specification is available for download in PDF format at Openlogformat.org.