Severities Usable in Log Messages 
If you are still unsure, which severity you have to use for your messages, the following table tries to outline in which situation a specific severity must be used and which information has to be provided with the log message.
Severity |
Description |
INFO |
Informational text to record an event, which does not have and also does not need any follow-up activity. It must help to understand the normal operation or can provide further information for later reviews, audits or investigations. |
WARNING |
The application processing can and will proceed, but later follow-up activity by people responsible for the specific category is necessary to avoid error situations in the future. Information how to solve the problem in the future must be available. |
ERROR |
The application processing terminates without completing the desired tasks. The application is still usable, but corrective actions need to be performed to avoid the erroneous termination in the future. Information of how to solve the problem has to be available. If not, customers will need to open problem messages to solve the problem. |
FATAL |
The application processing terminates without completing the desired tasks. The application is not usable anymore and cannot be started without corrective actions by experts. Customers will normally need to open problem messages to solve the problem. |