User activity monitoring involves collecting and analyzing all the various records pertaining to an activity of an individual user across the IT environment (and even beyond IT, in the case of physical access monitoring). When tracked on their own and in the context of other IT data, user activity records can serve as an indicator of malicious activity or unintentional security threats originating from within or outside the IT environment. They also help satisfy the demands of today's regulations.

Although no single technology can deliver user activity monitoring, log management and identity management can be combined to create a foundation for monitoring user activity across an enterprise. Implementing these technologies begins with log data. Logs, particularly logs stored in a centralized repository using a log management system, give you the flexibility, speed and control to unearth potential security breaches and user errors across all your systems. This paper explores the use of log and identity management systems for enabling user activity monitoring to improve security and ease regulatory compliance efforts, and increase the operational efficiency of the IT environment.