Amazon CloudSearch is enterprise search as a service, from Amazon Web Services.
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Splunk Enterprise
Score 8.4 out of 10
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Splunk is software for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated big data, via a web-style interface. It captures, indexes and correlates real-time data in a searchable repository from which it can generate graphs, reports, alerts, dashboards and visualizations.
I would like to mentioned about the scenario where Amazon cloud search was well suited is when we need regular updation of data and the subject matter requires continuous alterations due to the continuous changing environment and talking abut the least appropriate would the times when their is high level of customisation requirements in the project.
Pros: Splunk is very well suited if you have multiple log sources of related data. All of them can be correlated and tasks can be automated based on the requirement. Other than alerts, Splunk can also run a specific script of your choice, based on some defined conditions. Cons: If you have a few logs but a large number of log sources, Splunk can be very expensive.
First thing I would like to mentioned about its indexing speed, I have noticed while working with large sums of data
Second I would like to mentioned about customisation challenge, although it is also its pros but a con as well, as it is a tedious task to customise when time value comes place as well.
Thirdly, I do feel that its advanced search queries could be more supported. I have seen some level of lagging when it comes to more advanced search queries given the size of data.
We are using Splunk extensively in our projects and we have recently upgraded to Splunk version 6.0 which is quite efficient and giving expected results. We keep track of updates and new features Splunk introduces periodically and try to introduce those features in our day to day activities for improvement in our reporting system and other tasks.
You can literally throw in a single word into Splunk and it will pull back all instances of that word across all of your logs for the time span you select (provided you have permission to see that data). We have several users who have taken a few of the free courses from Splunk that are able to pull data out of it everyday with little help at all.
Splunk maintains a well resourced support system that has been consistent since we purchased the product. They help out in a timely manner and provide expert level information as needed. We typically open cases online and communicate when possible via e-mail and are able to resolve most issues with that method.
The online course was simple clear and described the main capabilities of the solution. There is also an initial module that can be done for free so anyone can familiarize themselves with the functionality of this solution. On the other hand, however, there could be more free online courses. Maybe even with a certificate, this would broaden the group of people who are familiar with the platform while increasing familiarity with the solution itself.
I didn't investigate the best alternatives to CloudSearch, but did help with implementing this feature in our application. But from what i tested and used - Cloudsearch is very fast to get queries. Some negative points can be the time to implement this and some configurations that can be tricky.
I wanted to learn a new language that I can quickly master and implement. Splunk is easy, fun to use and best of all, it can be developed in hours not days or weeks. Splunk is fundamentally a programming language that is minimal but yet powerful enough to collect, analyze and visualize data.
