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.
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xMatters
Score 10.0 out of 10
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xMatters is an IT alert management solution for enterprises. It is cloud-based incident management software that enables business processes or applications to trigger two-way communications (text, voice, email, SMS, etc.) during time-sensitive events.
I'm liking the newer products, and I'm looking forward to how they integrate with the overall product when they come together. Just log in and be able to query a large number of systems for similar issues or a unique one. That is a great fit for Splunk Enterprise, looking for a simple case or a simple String or something of that nature across multiple machines. It's a great fit for that to identify issues or particular software, whatever your scenario is, String, to find it across any particular server or group of servers, so that you can update or do a deployment or whatever it is you're looking to do.
We use xMatters for our alerting on critical matters. ServiceNow is our incident management system and it ties into xMatters. When a critical alert is generated it will notify the appropriate party. I'm trying to see if two other departments can use it. We are looking for a refrigeration system and for weather alerts when bad storms are coming
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.
xMatters has a pretty good UI. However, its versatility does get in the way a little as the number of options can be overwhelming, and it sometimes takes a while to find the place you want, or get the result you want. I don't have any suggestions on how to fix this, it's just a side effect of the complexity that xMatters offers.
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.
Working with xMatters support has been fantastic! Our support rep is very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. We get quick response times when asking questions, and when we have more complex problems, it's easy to schedule a call and spend some time working through our issues together. Every time we've had a problem we've been able to get the info we need and get a resolution easily.
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.
A lot of products have natively inside their own dashboards and or their own logging repositories. And each one is difficult to learn or they're too complex or they're not verbose in the sense that they're not easy to mine the data that you're looking for. So that could be anything from the native logging that you find in other Cisco products. It's easier to use Splunk to draw the data that you're looking for as opposed to going to the individual's products themselves to get the logs that you're looking for.
xMatters is a market leader among many new burgeoning products in the stakeholder notification space. They are historically one of two original enterprise products in this space. Great client base of large companies and good reputation. xMatters offers flexible licensing models, depending on functional needs. It's easy to learn and use but slightly more difficult to administer.
Splunk has allowed developers to diagnose production issues when access of control was taken away from them to be allowed to view items in production environments and I believe that is invaluable.
At times some developers weren't super happy about using it, but it was more of the fact that they were used to having production access and not creating their splunk queries to get information.
Going one place to view logs was very beneficial to have.
Managers are able to pull reports faster for any incidents escalated to their team.
When needing to contact another on-call associate from another team, xMatters provides conference bridge lines. You don't have to set up meetings through Outlook or Skype.
