01 Mar What is Splunk? What is it Used For?
With more and more data being produced by organizations and industries, companies today have numerous opportunities to improve their security. This mitigates the ever-increasing risk of data leaks and other cybersecurity issues.
However, the treasure trove of data also has a downside to it: gathering and analyzing information has become more complicated than ever. Big data requires searching and sorting to obtain the right details, which is a time-consuming procedure with conventional tools.
That’s why there are software programs like Splunk that allow users to sift through their data repositories more effectively. We’ll talk about this program in more detail below.
Listen to our audio to learn what Splunk is exactly:
What is Splunk?
Splunk is a revolutionary application that provides companies with automation capabilities to search and index their log files. It provides businesses with the insights they need from the data that they’ve amassed.
One of the biggest advantages of using this tool is that it leverages indexes when storing data. This allows Splunk to operate without needing an external database to store the information it has obtained.
Thanks to Splunk’s ability to obtain insights from big data, the software can be used to help organizations to reinforce their cybersecurity capabilities through actionable intelligence and advanced analytics.
How Does Splunk Work?
The main reason why Splunk was created was to resolve the challenge of big data being difficult to comprehend, especially when information is presented in a non-structured format. The platform is designed to collate data, analyze the details, and store it for later use.
Then, it presents the results to users in a format that is easier to understand compared to the raw form. Such presentation can come in the form of simplified alerts, reports, graphs, visualizations, and dashboards.
The system can also leverage big data to identify patterns, generate statistics, and assist users when diagnosing problems through its automation capabilities. All of these can be challenging for users, especially when using only conventional or manual means to analyze data.
What is Splunk Used For?
As an extensible data platform, Splunk provides companies with the power to do more digitally. There are three main aspects that the system can improve in businesses: security, IT, and DevOps.
Splunk for Security
As mentioned above, Splunk can be used to improve organizational security thanks to its automated response and advanced analytics features.
It can be used for security analytics and security information and event management (SIEM) by using pre-built workflows, dashboards, and frameworks. Such functions allow companies to more easily understand their data so that they can make more well-informed decisions.
With advanced automation, response, and orchestration features, people can use Splunk to enhance their security operations centers (SOC) to proactively combat threats. For instance, it’s possible to automate security actions on existing security apps to respond to issues in seconds.
Splunk for IT
IT management within organizations is made easier due to the service-centric features of Splunk. Designed to resolve issues quickly, the platform can help businesses prevent long-term outages that can significantly affect their bottom lines.
Splunk lets you keep track of IT infrastructure in real-time across various environments and troubleshoot issues as they arise. Its built-in streaming architecture enables near-instant monitoring so security teams can be alerted of problems seconds after they occur.
Splunk for DevOps
Finally, Splunk’s capabilities allow users to explore and resolve problems within entire stacks all in one interface.
The observability functions of the platform let developers increase their productivity, as they’ll be spending more time on producing quality programs rather than on debugging. For businesses, this means increased ROI and improved customer satisfaction due to the increased quality of their products.
Operational uncertainty is also reduced thanks to Splunk’s observability features. Its ability to help users obtain and assess data can allow organizations to get rid of surprises so they can scale easily into the cloud.
Conclusion
Splunk is a data platform that is capable of gathering, indexing, and storing big data to present it to users in an easily digestible form. Companies can harness its ability to collate information for improving their cybersecurity measures, increasing full-stack observability, and handling day-to-day IT issues.
The main advantages that Splunk has to offer are its ability to leverage big data so it can generate patterns, create metrics, and help users diagnose problems. All of these are possible thanks to the platform’s built-in features.