Course Outline
Introduction
- General overview of the Elastic Stack (ELK)
Module 1: ELK Stack Architecture and Review of Existing Environment
- Review of the current architecture of Altor CB
- ELK architecture: Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, Beats
- Ingest node versus Logstash
- Scalability and performance considerations in on-premise installations
- Administration best practices
Module 2: Beats – Distributed Monitoring (2 hours)
- Configuration and deployment of Filebeat, Auditbeat, Winlogbeat, and Packetbeat
- Secure data transmission 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 from applications
- Utilizing Logstash for data parsing and transformation
- Employing filters: grok, dissect, kv, mutate, date
- Establishing database connections (Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server) via the JDBC input plugin
- Practical scenarios: error logs, audit trails, traces, slow queries
Module 4: Advanced Search and Regular Expressions (2 hours)
- Advanced search syntax in Kibana
- Application of regular expressions (regex)
- Filters and logical combinations of OR/AND
- Nested fields and arrays
- Saving reusable queries and filters
Module 5: Custom Dashboards and Visualizations in Kibana (3 hours)
- Visualization types: bar, line, maps, tables
- Aggregations and metrics
- Dynamic filters, controls, and drill-down capabilities
- Dashboard sharing mechanisms
- Exercises: constructing dashboards from database and system logs
Module 6: Alerts and Email Notifications (3 hours)
- Introduction to Watcher and alternative solutions (ElastAlert, Kibana Alerts)
- Designing custom conditions and triggers
- Configuring email output
- Exercise: sending an alert upon detection of a critical event in Windows or database logs
Module 7: User and Permission Management (2 hours)
- Overview of X-Pack and free-tier options
- Creating users and roles
- Access control mechanisms for indices, dashboards, and queries
- Exercise: defining roles for audit and operations teams
Module 8: Elasticsearch REST API (3 hours)
- Fundamentals of the Elasticsearch RESTful API
- 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 solid understanding of the fundamental ELK Stack architecture and its components.
- Practical experience in ingesting and visualizing logs using Kibana and Logstash.
- Proficiency with the Linux command line and basic scripting.
Audience
- System administrators
- Infrastructure engineers
- Technical teams aiming to achieve 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
