Scalyr announced the beta launch of PowerQueries, a new set of advanced log search functionality that leverages its existing real-time data processing engine so you can transform your data on the fly.

PowerQueries lets users seamlessly pivot from facet-based search to complex log search operations for complicated data sets, such as grouping, transformations, filtering and sorting, table lookups and joins, enabling them to create sophisticated data processing pipelines.

Scalyr’s PowerQueries introduce a simplified query syntax and leverage the industry-leading performance, ease-of-use and scalability that customers have come to expect from Scalyr, resulting in an industry first - powerful queries with blazing-fast speed.

“In approaching the design to PowerQueries, we didn’t want to just be a me-too,” said Steve Newman, founder and Chairman of Scalyr. “We’ve heard far too often from customers and prospects who are familiar with legacy logging tools that their query languages are too complex, hard-to-learn and hard-to-use. So we thought about how we could leverage our strengths - real-time performance, ease-of-use and scalability - to provide similar but better functionality. As a result, we came up with a set of simple but powerful queries that address advanced use cases while improving the user experience dramatically. Like the rest of our solution, our PowerQueries are fast, easy-to-learn and easy-to-use.”

Scalyr’s PowerQueries are designed to give new users a sense of familiarity and comfort, easing the transition from a legacy log management tool to Scalyr. Users who rely on complex queries today can keep their operational workflows and processes intact, and don’t need to go through extensive training and certification. By keeping queries simple and intuitive, Scalyr lets all users - not just those who have special training - tackle more advanced use cases.

“With PowerQueries, new users can now perform the complex searches that they are used to but with the speed and simplicity that our existing customers love,” said Christine Heckart, CEO of Scalyr. “The vast majority of use cases can be addressed by our existing point-and-click search, which is very easy to use. Now, by applying the same design principles that are core to Scalyr, we can effectively address the remaining more advanced use cases all with a single platform.”

Scalyr’s PowerQueries don’t just address traditional IT use cases; they are designed to support today’s observability needs too. Legacy tools that use complex query languages as the basis for their data search and retrieval are slow and cumbersome, inherently limiting them from being used for increasingly dynamic and distributed environments. Since Scalyr’s PowerQueries leverage the same high-performance and scalable architecture, app-first companies with containerized and microservice-based workloads can also benefit from PowerQueries.

“Right from our UI, users can effortlessly pivot from simple searches to PowerQueries, and easily author PowerQueries using a vastly simplified query language. Our users now have a new and more sophisticated tool in the toolbox that lets them dive deeply into their data for faster exploration, investigation and troubleshooting, ultimately saving them time and money,” said Newman.

The initial release of Scalyr PowerQueries will include a dedicated search page with the ability to present results in two-dimensional tables.