At first I thought to title this post the same as the catchphrase of Log Parser: "The Whole World Is Your Database!"
But then I decided that was a bit too exciting for what I actually wanted to talk about.
So I just discovered Log Parser Studio a few days ago. LPS is a graphical frontend to Log Parser; quite similar to how SQL Management Studio is a GUI frontend to interacting with SQL Server. I am, quite frankly, ashamed that I didn't already know about it. It's fantastic.
The thing is... Log Parser is a command-line utility that uses a very SQL-esque language to interact with logs. What kind of logs, you ask? Any kind of logs! That's right... you can use it to query the Windows Security Event Log, or you can use it to query a folder full of IIS web server logs, or you can use it to query a log full of your own personal electric utility bills from last year!
However, Log Parser itself is a very complex, albeit powerful and flexible, command-line utility. Maybe you want something a little more user-friendly to get you started. That's exactly where Log Parser Studio, the GUI frontend, comes in to play.
As a little demonstration, I installed Log Parser 2.2 on my workstation. Then I downloaded Log Parser Studio to my workstation. I fired it up as a Windows application, and I pointed it to the remote IIS logs directory of this very web server. I then right-clicked on "IIS: Request per Hour" and chose "Run report now." As if I had just run a SQL query in SQL Management Studio, this window popped up:
*Click for Bigger*
This data is probably every single HTTP GET request made per hour, rather than a count of hits made by unique IP addresses, but the point is you now have this amazing utility that will parse practically any amount of data you can think of from any source of data you can think of. Go check it out and see how Log Parser is even capable of generating pie charts and bar charts and all sorts of crazy things using this data!