Are there good techniques for monitoring cron tasks over a cluster?

We're starting to use cron to launch tasks at daily intervals. A few ideas for checking out information:

1. Add special application handling that logs information into some "network aware" place, like a DB
2. Build up a logfile system that transfers the cron log periodically to a central point for processing/querying (along with other possible log files)

I'm wondering if people have had success with doing things separately for cron versus other things, or, if the tasks were integrated into a different approach completely. I'm leaning towards #2, but I'd like to know what more experienced folk might try out.