Likelihood to Recommend An environment where visibility of general performance metrics isn't currently done or is done with a system that is difficult to use (which was our case). An environment where resource allocation decisions need to be made (e.g. how much RAM and CPU to allocate to VM pools). An environment where a troubleshooting tool is needed (e.g. to answer the question, "Why is this person experiencing poor performance right now?")
Read full review 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.
Read full review Pros The triggers are very flexible and can be configured to alert on things from events in sessions to hardware failures. Script actions are what they sound like. They are scripts that can be created and run on demand or tied to a trigger. One example is that if a hard drive is low on space we have a script to clean up certain things on the drive. Script actions are supported by the ControlUp community. Community members can submit scripts that are reviewed by ControlUp and approved. This means more script are added over time. ControlUp support and sales support has been great. Our sales engineer is always willing to jump on and help us with configuration issues and standard support is quick to respond and are good at resolving issues. Read full review Real-time + Scheduled alerts - i-e you can set up alerts which are actively monitoring your logs Pretty good response time for search results. With our key/value logging, Splunk makes it blazing fast to query the data. Dashboards provide insights into historical data Love how Splunk indexes all of the data and provides keys to search on Read full review Cons It seems that there is a gradual transition occurring from one interface (a local program) to another (Web). This creates confusion at times. ScoutBees module has a problem with our version of Horizon, so we can't do a login test The local program for ControlUp uses a lot of resources The training session focus on very large environments, which we aren't. Might be good to offer SMB sessions separately. Read full review At times some queries can run slowly if indices are not on a portion of the query you use. Setup time initially can be difficult if your logs aren't stored in common locations or in a common way to write the log. Ability to ingest logs from different locations without having to change code to put logs in a certain place (pro and con). Searches can be a bit more difficult to look through if your log isn't pulled in a manner that is easy to read through splunk. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability When properly setup and configured, Splunk is extremely reliable.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Online Training 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.
Read full review Implementation Rating Smooth without too many major issues.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I feel all these products are good and have their strengths but for me it came down to two categories. How easy is it to find issues and cost. It seemed to me that the easiest to use is ControlUp and eG. Price broke down to ControlUp and
SysTrack being lower than Goliath and eG.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Scalability Splunk can scale in to the petabyte per day range which of course is awesome
Read full review Return on Investment its licensing cost is a bit on high Read full review Overall very positive. It has provided visibility to what is going on within our network. One drawback is the time it takes to get up to speed with the application, but this is up to the user, and Splunk education is excellent. In my field, IT Security, there are few other friends to have in your back pocket better than Splunk. They are just that good. Read full review ScreenShots