Course Outline
Introduction
- General overview of the Elastic Stack (ELK)
Module 1: ELK Stack Architecture and Review of Existing Environment
- Review of the current Altor CB architecture
- ELK architecture: Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and Beats
- Differences between Ingest nodes and Logstash
- Scalability and performance considerations for on-premise installations
- Best practices for administration
Module 2: Beats – Distributed Monitoring (2 hours)
- Configuration and application of Filebeat, Auditbeat, Winlogbeat, and Packetbeat
- Secure data shipping using SSL
- Preconfigured modules versus custom inputs
- Integration with Logstash and Ingest Pipelines
Module 3: Parsing and Ingesting Logs from Applications and Databases (4 hours)
- Ingesting custom logs generated by applications
- Utilizing Logstash for data parsing and transformation
- Application of filters: grok, dissect, kv, mutate, and date
- Establishing database connections (Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server) via the JDBC input plugin
- Practical scenarios: error logs, audit trails, traces, and slow queries
Module 4: Advanced Search and Regular Expressions (2 hours)
- Advanced search syntax within Kibana
- Effective use of regular expressions (regex)
- Utilizing filters and OR/AND logical combinations
- Working with nested fields and arrays
- Saving reusable queries and filters
Module 5: Custom Dashboards and Visualizations in Kibana (3 hours)
- Visualization types: bar charts, line graphs, maps, and tables
- Understanding aggregations and metrics
- Implementing dynamic filters, controls, and drill-down features
- Dashboard sharing mechanisms
- Exercises: building dashboards from database and system logs
Module 6: Alerts and Email Notifications (3 hours)
- Introduction to Watcher and alternative tools (ElastAlert, Kibana Alerts)
- Defining custom conditions and triggers
- Configuring email output
- Exercise: sending alerts upon detection of critical events in Windows or database logs
Module 7: User and Permission Management (2 hours)
- Overview of X-Pack and available free options
- Creating users and defining roles
- Implementing access control at the index, dashboard, and query levels
- Exercise: defining roles for audit and operations teams
Module 8: Elasticsearch REST API (3 hours)
- Foundations of the Elasticsearch RESTful API
- Executing GET and POST queries
- Manual and automated indexing techniques
- Utilizing tools such as curl and Postman
- Exercises: searching, inserting, deleting, and updating documents
Summary and Next Steps
Requirements
- A foundational understanding of the ELK Stack architecture and its core components.
- Practical experience with log ingestion and visualization using Kibana and Logstash.
- Familiarity with Linux command-line operations and basic scripting capabilities.
Audience
- System administrators.
- Infrastructure engineers.
- Technical teams looking to implement advanced log centralization capabilities.
Testimonials (2)
The content is very helpful, and the trainer makes it more easier to understand
Ibrahim Al mayahi - Vastech SA
Course - Advanced Elasticsearch and Kibana Administration
the profesionalism of the trainer; the way he tried to respond to all the questions; the review questions we had to ask: engaging us in conversations
