Migrate from Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability

This page is for customers that have been notified that their Papertrail account is undergoing a migration to SolarWinds Observability. If you have not been notified but would like to test a partial migration, contact sales (swo-sales@solarwinds.com). Perform a full migration yourself by migrating your logs and canceling your Papertrail account at any time.

Migrating from Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability is done in two stages:

1. Perform a partial migration by forwarding logs from Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability. Partial migration allows you to test and view your logs in SolarWinds Observability while still using Papertrail, before eventually making a full migration to SolarWinds Observability.
2. Perform a full migration within 60 days of starting the partial migration by sending your logs directly to SolarWinds Observability, discontinuing the use of Papertrail.

For answers to questions you may have about the migration, see Frequently asked questions, or contact sales (swo-sales@solarwinds.com).

Perform a partial migration to SolarWinds Observability

A partial migration to SolarWinds Observability allows you to familiarize yourself with its features while continuing to monitor your logs in Papertrail. Partial migration involves forwarding logs from Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability. Your Papertrail account will not be affected, and a SolarWinds Observability profile will be created for you automatically. After you have familiarized yourself with SolarWinds Observability, you can start working on a full migration.

With partial migration, logs are forwarded from Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability, before any filters are applied. This is often referred to as dual-writing. Only newly ingested logs will be sent to SolarWinds Observability. Your filters, groups, saved searches, and alerts will be copied to SolarWinds Observability. Migrated filters apply only to the forwarded logs, and alerts migrated from Papertrail are disabled by default to reduce redundancy.

Some things to keep in mind with partial migration:

• Only new logs created after the partial migration are forwarded to SolarWinds Observability. Pre-existing logs in Papertrail are not copied or forwarded to SolarWinds Observability.

• Once you click the link to start migrating your logs, partial migration is available for 60 days. During that time, you should start sending your logs directly to SolarWinds Observability and completing the full migration. After 60 days, your logs will no longer be forwarded to SolarWinds Observability.

• Your Papertrail account is converted to a free plan; look for a coupon from SolarWinds to extend your existing Papertrail subscription by several months. See Papertrail plans to see what log volume and options limitations exist with a free plan, and contact sales@solarwinds.com to discuss options or concerns.

• Your billing information is migrated to ensure an easy transition, and your SolarWinds Observability account is billed automatically as soon as the migration process starts.

Perform a full migration to SolarWinds Observability

Fully migrate to SolarWinds Observability and enjoy benefits such as enhanced features and functionality, continuous updates, support for OTel, and full observability of your environment in one place. SolarWinds recommends you start the full migration process before your 60 day partial migration period ends. Your logs will no longer be forwarded from Papertrail 60 days after the partial migration starts.

What are the benefits of migrating to SolarWinds Observability?

Migrate to SolarWinds Observability to take advantage of the following:

• Cutting-edge development and codebase: SolarWinds Observability leverages the latest codebase and is undergoing active development. This ensures that you're equipped with the most advanced features and capabilities, keeping your monitoring solutions up-to-date and future-proof.

• End of updates for Papertrail: Papertrail is no longer receiving continuous updates. By migrating to SolarWinds Observability, you ensure long-term support and access to the latest features, fixes, and enhancements.

• OTel adoption: SolarWinds Observability has native support for OTel, ensuring compatibility with evolving industry standards while retaining the distinctive benefits offered by SolarWinds. Logs can be sent directly to SolarWinds Observability using OTel standards.

• Full observability of your IT environment: SolarWinds Observability goes beyond collecting logs to providing full observability for your IT environment. You can add additional aspects of your environment, such as websites or network devices, as entities for SolarWinds Observability to monitor. Because these entities can be associated with log messages, you can view all aspects of your logs and environment in a single place.

How to complete your full migration to SolarWinds Observability

Update your current logs configuration to send logs to the correct SolarWinds Observability endpoint for your logging method and organization. You will also need to create a SolarWinds Observability API token and send it with your logs to SolarWinds Observability. Logs must be sent securely using encryption protocols such as TLS.

Step 1: Send logs directly to SolarWinds Observability

• HTTPS: Send logs over HTTPS to your organization's HTTPS logs collector endpoint. The HTTPS logs collector endpoint format is logs.collector.xx-yy.cloud.solarwinds.com/v1/logs, where xx-yy represents the data center your organization uses.

  See Send logs over HTTPS for more information.

• Linux syslog: Follow the steps in the SolarWinds Observability Add Data dialog to send syslog logs from a Linux machine to your organization’s syslog collector endpoint. The syslog collector endpoint is syslog.collector.xx-yy.cloud.solarwinds.com, where xx-yy represents the data center your organization uses.

  Remove the 95-papertrail.conf file from your system; your syslog configuration must use the 99-solarwinds.conf file created while following the instructions in the Add Data dialog.

  See Send syslogs from a Linux machine for more information.

• Windows syslog: Follow the steps in the SolarWinds Observability Add Data wizard to send syslog logs from NXLog on a Windows machine to your organization’s syslog collector endpoint. The syslog collector endpoint is syslog.collector.xx-yy.cloud.solarwinds.com, where xx-yy represents the data center your organization uses.

  Update the nxlog.conf Windows configuration file to match the nxlog.conf template provided by SolarWinds Observability. See Send syslogs from a Windows machine for more information.

Step 2: Modify and enable settings in SolarWinds Observability

• Modify log exclusion filters: Log exclusion filters migrated from Papertrail only apply to forwarded logs. For the same filters to apply to logs sent directly to SolarWinds Observability, create new log exclusion filters to match the previous filters, but apply to the logs that were not forwarded.

  See Log exclusion filtering.

• Review and enable migrated alerts: Alerts migrated from Papertrail were disabled by default to avoid redundant alerts. Review the alerts that were migrated and enable alerts as appropriate.

  See Enable or disable alerts.

Frequently asked questions

Why is SolarWinds Papertrail transitioning to SolarWinds Observability?

Many SolarWinds Papertrail users have asked how they can extend beyond log aggregation to full-stack visibility across applications, services, cloud and hybrid infrastructures, and databases. SolarWinds Observability is built around the Papertrail event viewer and offers the same event search speed and ease of search as Papertrail, while connecting data points across the stack to deliver operational intelligence and business insights.

How is my SolarWinds Papertrail log data showing up in SolarWinds Observability?

Your log data is being forwarded from Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability.

How long will my log data be forwarded to SolarWinds Observability?

Your log data will be forwarded to SolarWinds Observability for 60 days after you start the migration. Use these 60 days to familiarize yourself with SolarWinds Observability, redirect your log senders to SolarWinds Observability, and verify that all your logs are appearing correctly in SolarWinds Observability.

What happens after the 60 days have ended?

Log forwarding from SolarWinds Papertrail to SolarWinds Observability will end after your 60-day partial migration period has ended.

What happens to my Papertrail account?

Your SolarWinds Papertrail account will be downgraded to a free 50 MB with 1-day retention search plan. You will also receive a coupon to extend your logging plan in Papertrail by several months.

What can I do if I need more time to set up my log sources?

Contact Sales (swo-sales@solarwinds.com) or Support (support@solarwinds.com) to understand your options.

Do I need to enter my plan and billing data into SolarWinds Observability?

No, your plan information and your billing data have been automatically moved to SolarWinds Observability, and your SolarWinds Observability logs subscription plan starts immediately.

What if I have a question about my billing?

For any billing-related inquiries, please reach out to Accounting (accounting@solarwinds.com).

Can I use the other features in SolarWinds Observability?

Yes. Your account includes both your logging plans and a 30-day trial of the other features of SolarWinds Observability. We encourage you to experience the power of end-to-end observability and add other data sources.

Can I purchase more log volume and additional features?

Yes, to purchase more log volume or to add more features, select the Add Data button in the top ribbon.