I created vsConsole because it was a pain to get access to even the development and test server logs for the apps we were working on. Now the developers and testers have easy access to logs (not just syslogs, but our application logs wherever they may be).
vsConsole is a similar application that solves the same problem, but based on java technologies.
* Java Agents run on the servers
* vsConsole is a web application that runs on Tomcat
Use a browser to select the desired log file, and you can tail it. (When the browser polls the web app, the web app will contact the agent for the latest changes to the file).
vsConsole is aimed at development teams, not as a production log monitor. For example, while developers and testers are working with an application, when they want to see whats going on in the log, they can just click a button - no unix accounts, ssh, tailing, needing to know where the logs are etc.
A new version which looks a lot better, and has simple messaging and application monitoring will be out soon.
http://demo.vamonossoftware.com
So, I can easily see the use for these kinds of tools. Nagios, Splunk, et al are all too heavyweight for our kind of requirements.