What is the difference between SETP and Syslog?

Created 2003-10-21 by Wajih-ur-Rehman

What is the difference between SETP and Syslog and what advantages does SETP offer over Syslog?

Following are some of the points related to traditional Syslog:

1. Its a UDP based protocol.
2. It doesn't provide any guarantees of message delivery.
3. It doesn't parses the data so most of the fields of MonitorWare Database would remain empty, if Syslog is used to send data to the database.
4. It is supported by EventReporter, WinSyslog and MonitorWare Agent.

For more details about Syslog, please visit:
http://www.monitorware.com/Common/en/articles/syslog-described.asp

Following are some of the points related to SETP:

1. Its Adiscon's proprietary protocol.
2. Its a TCP based protocol.
3. It provides guarantee of message delivery.
4. It parses the data out and hence all of the fields of MonitorWare Database would be filled.
5. It is supported by WinSyslog 5.0 Enterprise Edition and MonitorWare Agent (EventReporter 6.0 will also support SETP sending)
6. Since MonitorWare Console expects that all of the fields of the database have some values in it, it generates more meaningful reports with SETP as compared to Syslog (with which most of the fields are empty)

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are sending the data using SETP protocol, then on the receiving end there must be a SETP listener to receive that data. So, in no case it is possible that you send the data using MonitorWare Agent (which supports SETP sending) and receive that data using WinSyslog 4.x (which doesn't support SETP receiving).

Please note that the syslog restrictions mentioned here apply to traditional, UDP based syslog. There are newer syslog standards available, most importantly RFC 3195. Adiscon is one of the yet few supporters of these new standards. With it, the reliability issues of syslog are solved. However, there are still length isuses, so that this is not the final solution. Adiscon is actively working with the standards bodies to improve syslog protocol's capabilities. We hope that, in the medium to long term, we can provide the same benefits SETP offers over standardized syslog.