Syslog is a protocol for sending log messags over an IP network. It has been standardized by the IETF (documents here)
Originally developed as part of Sendmail, SysLog became the defacto standard for Unix and Linux systems.
A “syslog server” or “syslog daemon” is typically the recipient of syslog messages.
SourceLabs includes the ability to capture, sort, search and correlate Syslog messages with millions of records as part of its Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java