Notes on reading other people's logs
A large part of operations work is reading logs written by someone else. Over time I have collected a few habits that make it easier.
First, find the earliest error, not the loudest. Cascading failures produce thousands of messages, but the first one usually points at the cause. Second, compare with a healthy period: the same message may appear every day and mean nothing.
Finally, write down what you found. The next incident will look familiar, and the notes will save an hour.