Splunk - Splunk Tutorial

Splunk is an American multinational corporation based in San Francisco, California, that produces software for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated big data, via a web-style interface.

Splunk (the product) captures, indexes and correlates real-time data in a searchable repository from which it can generate graphs, reports, alerts, dashboards and visualizations.

Splunk has a mission of making machine data accessible across an organization by identifying data patterns, providing metrics, diagnosing problems and providing intelligence for business operations. Splunk is a horizontal technology used for application management, security and compliance, as well as business and web analytics. As of early 2016, Splunk has over 10,000 customers worldwide.

Splunk is based in San Francisco, with regional operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and has over 1700 employees.

History

Michael Baum, Rob Das and Erik Swan co-founded Splunk Inc in 2003. Venture firms August Capital, Seven Rosen, Ignition Partners and JK&B Capital backed the company.

By 2007 Splunk had raised 40 million USD; it became profitable in 2009. In 2012 Splunk had its initial public offering, trading under NASDAQ symbol SPLK.

In September 2013 the company acquired Bugsense, a mobile-device data-analytics company. Bugsense provides "a mobile analytics platform used by developers to improve app performance and improve quality". It supplied a "software developer kit" to give developers access to data analytics from mobile devices that it managed from its scalable cloud platform. The acquisition amount was undisclosed.

In July 2015 Splunk acquired Caspida, a cybersecurity startup, for $190 million.

In October 2015 Splunk sealed a "cybersecurity alliance" with U.S. government security contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. to offer combined cyberthreat detection and intelligence-analysis technology.

Products

Splunk's core offering, Splunk Enterprise, collects and analyzes high volumes of machine-generated data. It uses a standard API to connect directly to applications and devices. It was developed in response to the demand for comprehensible and actionable data reporting for executives outside a company's IT department.

In 2011, Splunk released Splunk Storm, a cloud-based version of the core Splunk product. Splunk Storm offered a turnkey, managed and hosted service for machine data. In 2013, Splunk announced that Splunk Storm would become a completely free service and expanded its cloud offering with Splunk Cloud. In 2015, Splunk shut down Splunk Storm.

In 2013, Splunk announced a product called Hunk: Splunk Analytics for Hadoop, which supports accessing, searching, and reporting on external data sets located in Hadoop from a Splunk interface.

In 2015, Splunk announced a Light version of the core Splunk product, aimed at smaller IT-environments and mid-sized enterprises.

In 2016, Google announced its cloud platform will integrate with Splunk to expand in areas like IT ops, security and compliance.

Splunkbase

Splunkbase is a community hosted by Splunk where users can go to find apps and add-ons for Splunk which can improve the functionality and usefulness of Splunk, as well as provide a quick and easy interface for specific use-cases and/or vendor products. Examples of these applications are:

• Splunk Add-On for Microsoft Windows
• CIS Critical Security Controls
• Cisco Security Suite
• Gigamon Visability App for Splunk

Splunk apps and add-ons can be developed by anyone, including Splunk themselves.

Customers

Splunk was designed for use in information technology operations; it is also used in other ways.

IT operations

• Sony
• Metropcs
• Ceryx
• Denver Water

Web analytics

• Cars.com
• Domino's Pizza
• National Public Radio

Predictive analytics

• Sports Illustrated

Internet of Things

• Bangkok Metropolitan Administration Department of Drainage and Sewage to send alerts
• Eglin Air Force Base for energy conservation
• Nest Labs to analyze thermostat data
• iRhythm to check on product performance
• Unnamed elevator company to monitor elevator usage

Computer security

• University of Connecticut
• Various federal and state agencies

Regulatory compliance

• Barclays bank
• Credit Suisse
• Monster.com
• Sportsbet.com.au