Overview of CIC logging mechanisms

CIC uses two logging mechanisms:

1. Critical system messages are written to NT Event Logs. In general, Event logs are reserved for high-priority messages that require the immediate attention of a system administrator.

   

   NT Event Logs are viewed using Microsoft Management Console.

2. Trace logs document the operation of various IC subsystems. This type of logging is more verbose. Most IC subsystems have a dedicated trace log. These logs contain information about error conditions, warnings, and data that helps indicate the processing behavior of the subsystem.

   A software subsystem typically logs messages when it passes control to a routine, encounters a problem, or otherwise needs to record work performed. The degree of detail written to logs is configurable for each IC subsystem.

   The routines that write messages are called trace topics. Trace topics correspond to subroutines invoked by a subsystem, or to some type of major functionality provided by an application. Every subsystem and application has its own set of trace topics.

   Each topic has a numeric trace level setting that controls the verbosity of messages written about that topic. Not all messages are equally important. Messages from some routines are more important than others.

   Trace levels are sometimes called topic levels, since people tend to combine both terms. Topic is what is traced, level controls how much. Trace levels are numeric values that determine which messages are logged for a topic, based upon the severity of the message.