Log monitoring and management have become increasingly complex due to the proliferation of modern cloud applications running across multiple servers and platforms, which makes traditional methods like using SSH and command-line tools such as `tail -f` inadequate. Modern log management solutions, such as Elastic Observability, offer scalable and efficient options for collecting, storing, and analyzing log data, even when dealing with unstructured log data that lacks a clear machine-readable format. By using tools such as the Elastic Agent and integrating custom log files with Elastic's ingest pipelines, users can enhance log data with metadata and improve timestamp accuracy, ultimately facilitating better troubleshooting and data analysis. These platforms support advanced search capabilities through Elasticsearch, which allows rapid querying across vast datasets, and provide the ability to enrich logs with metadata from cloud providers, enabling detailed analysis and improved insights into system performance. The ongoing series of blog posts aims to guide users through best practices in log monitoring and analytics, covering essential topics such as data ingestion, parsing, and visualization, with future discussions planned on building dashboards and managing data lifecycle.