AWS CloudTrail vs. Splunk Cloud

It is necessary to enable [AWS] Cloudtrail when using AWS in a production environment, otherwise you will not have any idea what is happening within your accounts. Third party monitoring applications will all require [AWS] CloudTrail to be enabled as well. I would not recommend it solely as a monitoring tool, to get the most out of it you must send the logs elsewhere. Either to Cloudwatch logs or a third party product.

Incentivized

Splunk is excellent when all your data is in one location. Its ability to correlate all that data is intuitive (once the hurdle of learning the query language is overcome). It is also easy to standardize the presentation of information to the company. When data is siloed/standalone, other systems can be cheaper and faster to implement.

Incentivized

• API Log
• User activity tracking
• Real-time alerts

Incentivized

• This SIEM consolidates multiple data points and offers several features and benefits, creating custom dashboards and managing alert workflows.
• Splunk Cloud provides a simple way to have a central monitoring and security solution. Though it does not have a huge learning curve, you should spend some time learning the basics.
• Splunk Cloud enables me to create and schedule statistical reports on network use for Management.

Incentivized

• [In my experience] Cost can easily get out of control with multiple trails on full logging
• Logs can be difficult to decipher

Incentivized

• The SPL programming language that the queries are built in is not very intuitive.
• There should be a better repository of pre-built queries for what I would think of as common Active Directory usage monitoring.
• I would like to see more free training/familiarization information made available.

Incentivized

Overall, it is very usable. I would like if recent searches were saved for longer because I always have to refer to my notes when I'm looking for something specific and it's been a few weeks. But that's a small issue, and the actual search and browsing interface is easy to use and powerful.

Incentivized

Splunk Cloud support is sorely lacking unfortunately. The portal where you submit tickets is not very good and is lacking polish. Tickets are left for days without any updates and when chased it is only sometimes you get a reply back. I get the feeling the support team are very understaffed and have far too much going on. From what I know, Splunk is aware of this and seem to be trying to remedy it.

Incentivized

I think in the end, CloudTrail has more features and you can dive deeper inside the logs so it depends on your usage and what you expect in the end to make the right choice, I would say that both tools are really useful and bring a lot of benefits to I.T. companies.

Incentivized

Splunk Cloud blows Sumo Logic out of the water. The experience is night and day. We went from several highly stressed IT security professionals who were unsure if the data they were getting was valuable, to very happy IT security professionals who can now be more proactive and get all the information they need.

Incentivized

• Allows us to investigate any strange api actions
• Increases security
• Audit trail of changes made in AWS

Incentivized

• End-end visibility across your departmental silos
• Strengthen the overall global monitoring posture
• Move from Reactive to Proactive Monitoring
• Highly secure environment at your finger-tips
• Takes you away from managing infrastructure/administration, allows saving time & money. Reduce the overall TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

Incentivized