Rainer Gerhards (born March 11, 1967) is a German software engineer, network engineer, and protocol designer best known for his Computer data logging work including Rsyslog and Reliable Event Logging Protocol. He began developing Rsyslog in 2004, to forward log messages in an Internet Protocol Network from UNIX and Unix-like computer systems. In 1988, Gerhards founded the company RG Informationssysteme, which was later rebranded as Adiscon GmbH in 1997.