Splunk Enterprise Security Reviews

Our initial use case was for security investigation, with the intention of creating some use cases. We ended up adding operational aspects, monitoring certain operational activities, such as high CPU utilization or any other applicational basis. 

This is obviously a cloud solution, but it does have some presence on-premises as well, so it's hybrid. 

One of the most valuable features is threat hunting. We can do threat hunting and identify if there is any malicious activity happening within our environment, which is a key feature for us. 

Splunk could be improved by reducing the cost. The cost is one of the biggest challenges for us in keeping to our production requirements. 

As for additional features, I think they need to refine their AI capability. I know that everyone is talking about artificial intelligence and threat hunting, so I guess one of the key requirements for us is for the solution to automatically provide us some kind of indication and then mitigate any risk. So automation should be a feature. 

I have been using Splunk for two years. 

This solution is excellent from a performance and stability perspective. There's very minimal maintenance required. Basically the only aspect we need to maintain is the one we have on-prem. So patching up everything and making sure it has the required updates. 

There are no issues at all in terms of scalability, since this is a cloud-based solution. There are around 25 to 30 users in my company accessing Splunk. 

Splunk's support is good. The process was smooth and they provided sufficient support, so there was no need to escalate anything. Also, they provide training on a regular basis, which is good. 

I have never worked with other similar products. I've worked for three companies, all of which use Splunk. 

The initial setup was very smooth. I think we got some support from the Splunk team. Since it's a cloud-based solution, it took us probably three or four weeks to actually start working. But deploying agents, configuration, refining, fine tuning, and other ongoing activities went on for about a month. 

We implemented through an in-house team with some support from the Splunk team. It was a very smooth process, from our perspective. 

This solution is costly. Splunk is obviously a great product, but you should only choose this product if you need all the features provided. Otherwise, if you don't need all the features to meet your requirements, there are probably other products that will be more cost-effective. It's cost versus the functionality requirement. 

I also evaluated IBM QRadar and LogRhythm NextGen SIEM. 

I work in security architectures, not operations, so I don't actually work with Splunk on a regular basis, but the team that does is working on threat hunting and incident management. 

I rate Splunk an eight out of ten. 

We are currently using it with SIEM, and SOAR which is Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response.

Splunk is primarily used for security, incident response, and security analytics.

Using Splunk, give us the visualization we need, we can easily observe things such as user behavior analytics, irregular traffic, frequency, and any spikes in unusual activity inside the network.

The additional vendors we've brought on board, particularly the Elastic, have been quite beneficial.

It's a solid platform.

Other than the pricing modules, I have no issues with the product itself.

The configuration had a bit of a learning curve.

I would like to learn more about the Cloud solution, but I'm aware that it's lacking some core applications.

If they could bring on more vendors, you would be able to monitor a larger number of applications. We could have visualization with other applications we have with the infrastructure in our organization.

I did a POC, but we have recently procured it. We did a rudimentary setup to get an understanding of how it works. We are into our sixth month of using it now.

Splunk is a very stable solution.

This solution is quite scalable.

In our organization, we have 10 users, who use this solution but we have plans to increase our usage.

The technical support has been quite helpful.

The previous solution was limited in its functionality. 

We were looking at the additional controls that enterprise security may have, as well as visualization, to gain greater visibility.

Splunk offered us more visibility.

The initial setup was complex.

We had some assistance with the actual deployment, but while I was doing the POC, I was working with a vendor. There were things I had to do myself, such as the configuration, which was a bit challenging for me, it was a big learning curve.

For the installation, we received some assistance from the vendor.

It's too early to know if there will be a return on investment.

The pricing modules could be improved.

The licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.

There is a standard license with provisions for more. As we are still exploring the functionality, there may be other departments that want to use it.

Those who are interested in implementing this solution should be prepared to dig deep into their pockets.

I would rate Splunk a nine out of ten.

I have some experience with the solution, since I am working with customers who are interested in part time help monitoring their network and have been helping them fine-tune the rules in the solution's platform. The way the primary task works is to watch for and then respond to the threat. Should there be a need, I usually work with a team in fine-tuning the rules on this platform. We are providing the products.

I recently started working primarily on the Playbooks of the Splunk Phantom, so I've been creating some of these to help the customer automate the process of responding to the threats.

What is nice about the solution is that it makes it easy to build the queries, search for the events and then do analysis. I recently have become involved in the Playbooks, since it is painful for the client to respond to the threat, be it positive or negative. As such, I currently see the Phantom component of the solution to be of great value. Otherwise, most other features seem to be similar to Netwitness, such as the monitor log, network, and endpoint capabilities. Importantly, the solution lacks endpoint options, as these are currently deployed on Cisco, which is okay, as it works fine with that bad side of the endpoint security. This translates into them building queries, rules and then Playbooks. 

The main advantage of the solution is that it provides an easy setup platform in the new environment. When set up afresh, it is also easy to build queries. Historical queries can be used to site for a new event, which makes it easy to use, deploy and understand.

Endpoint access is the only issue I can think to mention, even though the endpoint access we have with Cisco is fine. 

I have been engaged in the production environment of Splunk for around a year and have been reading up on it for a long time.

I would rate Splunk as one of the big five platforms. I would give it a high rating based on the efficiency of the platform. 

Splunk allows one to easily scale up this platform. One can add more interfaces to that platform if he gets more data. 

I usually rely on the Splunk community for information, such as discussions of incidents and other issues which others are facing. I feel the Splunk community to be an excellent source of information for me.

Out of the three platforms I have been dealing with, I feel the initial setup of Splunk to be the easiest. I found it a bit difficult to set up a new environment with RSA Netwitness. Splunk, on the other hand, I have found to be very straightforward and an uncomplex platform. 

I have been proposing to management to take the solution to be a primary product in our dealings with it. We do not encounter many issues involving the solution. One of the problems I have with the RSA Netwitness platform is its complexity. Splunk is straightforward for us when it comes to views and it provides us the network security posture.

The ability for the solution to work with Cisco shows that the solution can work with other products. The only thing is that when the solution is compared with other vendors, one sees that there is only a single other vendor that has endpoint security like this one, Netwitness platform having its component for the endpoint. This is why an integrated endpoint would be a nice feature, even though the solution works on Cisco. 

The main advantage of the solution is that it provides an easy setup platform in the new environment. When set up afresh, it is also easy to build queries. Historical queries can be used to site for a new event, which makes it easy to use, deploy and understand. 

When it comes to a data platform, there is RSA NetWitness, which may also be a good platform. I have not done much training of my own on Splunk, but have gained much experience through learning and working with clients that I support. This is because the platform is understandable. 

I would rate Splunk as one of the big five platforms. I would give it a high rating based on the efficiency of the platform. Clearly, I cannot include Wazuh in the top five categories, as its rating is not up there with Splunk, Qradar and LogRythm.

I cannot think of anything disadvantageous about Splunk, as we are talking about a product that I like. I feel the solution has beautiful features. 

The decision to go with Splunk would depend on the business needs of the individual. I know that Splunk has both a cloud and an on-premises option. Sometimes, such as when it comes to conferences, there is no need to move some of the data to the cloud for the purpose of complying with regional requirements. There may be a need to retain some of it and a person might wish for a mixture of on-cloud and on-premises capabilities.

I rate Splunk as an eight out of ten. It is a robust platform and easy to use. 

In our organization, Splunk is used in our data centers.

We have integration services and other types of systems in our new IoT architecture. We're using it to capture information.

We use Splunk as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources, however, for our protection suite, we're using Comodo.

It's designed to collect data from different points. It has a lot of integrations built into it and that's why we're using it.

We use it for our enterprise more - such as for messaging. There's a lot of stuff we do on our integration services layer that we use Splunk for. For security purposes, we're using Comodo. Therefore we're not using Splunk for security purposes. We're using it for monitoring what's happening at our integration services layer.

Splunk indicates when we've got problems popping up somewhere or we're not getting the flow we expected. If there's a problem, we have those flagged and we use it for logging.

Splunk handles a high volume of data that we have, and it does it really well.

For what we're using it for, we're happy with its functionality.

The reporting aspect is good and it does what I need it to do.

From an operational standpoint, it helps us on the operations side and it also shows where we're having issues.

It connects to a lot of stuff. We can collect information from a lot of sources.

The interface or maybe some settings need to be improved a bit. It cannot be perfect, however, the issues may be related to the configuration or setup.

If you monitor too much, you can lose performance on your systems. You have to be careful what you're monitoring. If you monitor everything, everything stops working. You can go overboard in monitoring. You have to plan your monitoring pretty carefully.

It could be easier for beginners. As it is, right now, You have to have a good understanding of the solution in order to use it properly.

That said, as the user, I'm at a higher level of management on the architecture side in dealing with resilience. My concerns are different from other user concerns. Also, most of our clients are using it way more than we're using it.

We've used the solution for more than a decade. It's been a long time. 

We haven't had any problems with stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

We've never had an issue with scalability. If a company needs to scale, it can.

The danger of Splunk is that it can get too big too quickly and you have to be very careful with what you want to be monitoring due to the fact that if you monitor too much, you can slow down things and you can hurt your performance on your system. We have to be very careful of what we're logging.

We have about 12 users on the solution right now.

We do not plan to increase usage in the future.

We don't use technical support very much. We've been using it for so long, we generally understand it and do not require assistance.

We used to use Splunk a lot more, however, we've moved more to Comodo right now. I'd say we've moved to Comodo from Splunk in a lot of areas.

On the security side, we use Comodo. Not all of our clients even have Comodo. A lot of them are using Splunk, however, a lot of them are using Splunk for enterprise operations and network operations items. Some of them are using security and a lot of them aren't. Splunk is offered as a security option now, however, originally, when you used it, it was to collect enterprise operations information and know-how your systems are running. 

We've been using it for a long time, therefore, I don't even remember when we set it up or how it went. We do keep it updated and use the latest versions.

I only have one or two people doing maintenance on it.

ROI's a hard thing to pin down. We've had it for so long, it's part of our core operating infrastructure.

Everything we do is either yearly or multi-year. I don't know if there is any additional cost to standard license fees.

We use Splunk and we also sell and support it for our clients.

Normally our policy is to keep software updated to the latest version.

The main issue is that we do enterprise architecture and network and security operations. We recommend certain platforms to clients. We don't always sell Splunk directly to them due to the fact that, since we're being hired to help them make choices, we need to be neutral. In the cases where it doesn't make sense, we don't sell it. We just help clients make decisions.

I don't know which version of the solution we're using. I'm an architect; I'm not on the operations level. I'm not the one who actually uses it. Our operations use it. I get dashboard results and I do reports that are based on it, however, I'm not the one actually running it. We have a NOC and a SOC and others use it a lot more individually. They have a lot more interaction than I do. I'm getting reports out of it. Others are actually connecting to it, using it as a tool. I'm not a tool user. I'm an information user.

All Splunk is, is data collection and it can sort things out on a dashboard. However, a lot of what Splunk does is collect data and you have to decide what kind of information you're going to let it collect. When we're doing design operations we have to really pay attention to what we're doing, so we don't actually slow things down or impede things. The reason we use Splunk is we put a lot of data into it.

With Splunk, you need to really be careful about what you're monitoring and how you use it, to get keep the results working. It's a good tool if you know what you're doing and what you need to be logging. You need to be aware of what you're logging to ensure it isn't going to cause problems with your performance.

I wouldn't recommend it for somebody who's coming in new. Of the clients we have using it, I don't know if any of them don't have professional IT running it. It's important to really understand what's going on.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. In certain environments, it could be a bit complex. It's not something you could just drop into an organization, you need to be trained to use it. You need the experience to use it properly.

We typically use it for centralized log management and SIEM functionality.

I am using the most recent version of it.

As per government requirements, a lot of government sites have to have the active monitoring of logs. So, we use their security appliance add-on that essentially combs through the log. It pre-filters and brings out the critical events so that you can focus on those instead of having to create your own searches and whatnot. It helps simplify the process of monitoring security events in the logs for people.

The flexibility of the search capability is most valuable. You can use it for more than just a basic log aggregator. It is powerful in that regard.

It is a good product, but the Achilles heel for a lot of organizations is the cost model for it because it gets expensive. That's because the model is based on how much data it processes a day, which can be prohibitive, especially if you have a lot of data. A lot of customers may not be ready for the sticker shock on how to fully leverage the product. I realized that the reason for that is that when it was originally designed, it was kind of like a big data modeling application. If they want to have a bigger customer base, they can come out with subsets of their product that are focused on specific things and have different pricing models. It may help with the cost.

To actively use the interface, you have to be able to speak their language. You really need to have Splunk training to use the tool. Integrations are not that bad, but once you get into that developer mindset and you understand the programming query language, then you're pretty flexible in making it work with other products. It could be daunting if you don't have the training. It is akin to being thrown and asked to go write a Python script when you don't know any of the Python language or PowerShell. If you don't know how to form the queries, the words, or the syntax, it can be a hurdle if you're looking everything up.

I have been using Splunk for about seven years.

It has been very stable. It is pretty rock solid.

It is as scalable as you can afford. We have a pretty small user base of 75 users, and it is mostly data center administration staff, application administrators, and security people. It is more of an in-house solution than a customer-facing solution.

Our usage is moderate. We're okay right now. We primarily use it as a SIEM and log aggregator. We could use it for other things, but the cost is what is preventing us from that at this point.

We've had a few calls, and they're very responsive.

We were using an assist log backend with Rsync and Kiwi prior to that. It was more of a co-solution than a cobbled-together solution. Splunk was a big improvement. The main reason for going for it was just the rate at which we were growing. We needed to have something that was more scalable than what we had before.

It was pretty straightforward as compared to most applications. It had the ability to auto-deploy agents to end devices. Splunk infrastructure itself wasn't difficult to deploy or set up. They package that process, and it is pretty well-rounded. They even offer a jumpstart install service to help get it off the ground when you buy in, and those components work really well together.

It was all done within a day. Some of the endpoints took a little bit longer, but the basic install was done in the day.

We used packaged professional services from a partner of Splunk. Our experience with them was very good.

In terms of maintenance, it is pretty simple. There are fewer patches than there would be for supporting a Windows device. There is not much labor to maintain it.

It can be cost-prohibitive when you start to scale and have terabytes of data. Its cost model is based on how much data it processes a day. If they're able to create scaled-down niche or custom package offerings, it may help with the cost. Instead of the full-blown features, if they can narrow the scope where it can only be used for a specific purpose, it would kind of create that market for the product, and it may help with the costing. When you start using it as a central aggregator and you're pumping tons of logs at it, pretty soon, you'll start hitting your cap on what it can process a day. Once you've got that, you're kind of defeating the purpose because you're going to have to scale back.

They're kind of pushing everybody away from perpetual licensing into subscription-based models, which a lot of companies are doing too, but in most environments that I've been in, they prefer to go the perpetual license and then just pay maintenance on top of it. That's because it's easier for them to forecast the big expense up front.

I would advise definitely taking advantage of their professional services and making sure that the administrators and whoever is going to be using the tool go through the training. The cost for the training, which depends on if you're commercial or government, is not that much, and there is a definite value there because if you're trying to learn it on your own with a book, it is going to take forever.

I would rate Splunk a seven out of 10. 

It's the mainstay of our monitoring solutions that we have for auto-logging, et cetera, for our enterprise solution.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the ability to capture the different data streams. We also appreciate the reporting in that aspect of Splunk. If we can grow now, with any security arena, it's going to be proactive, not reactive. It allows us to digest the information, the data, the different data streams, so we can make decisions based upon information that we receive, and it is pretty robust.

The configuration could be better.

We would like to see improved pricing, however, I'm kind of out of that arena. I make suggestions based upon the flexibility with which we serve our customer base, which is millions of our veterans. I would say that if someone was not familiar with it, one of the things that I've heard is that it's kind of hard for them to understand the whole thing. Splunk is just one piece to the puzzle. It's not the whole puzzle. It's kind of not the solution's fault, in that sense. That said, if it could be more accessible to people with different skillsets, that would be ideal.

We'd like to see reporting where there's a way that we can get a higher description without being too technical, for example, where it's kind of more of an executive-level of technical.

I've personally been using the solution for over ten years. At this point, it's been more than a decade. I've used it for a while now. 

We're partners and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with Splunk.

We use the latest version. I'm not hands-on. I'm called the architect, however, we do use the latest version as that's a part of our configuration management framework, that all of our applications - especially in security - are up-to-date with the latest and greatest updates, bells, and whistles. We use both public and private clouds.

In terms of creating the solution, for what we do from an enterprise standpoint, everything from monitoring to data capture to reporting, we would rate it at a nine out of ten.

Typically, we use the solution for critical infrastructure companies. 

The speed is a very valuable aspect of the solution. 

The way Splunk handles low data and low-rate costs are great.

The level of robustness on offer is very good. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

We have found that the solution offers good integrations with other products.

Overall, the solution works very well.

The complexity could be worked on so that it's even easier and faster. However, I understand that, if some complexity was removed, there might be slightly more limitations.

Occasionally there are data sizing and data-related issues that need to be overcome.

I've been using the solution for a couple of years.

The performance is very good. It's something that customers are always looking for. The product offers good stability. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

We have about five to ten partners that use Splunk.

I'm a fan of QRadar. I use them as well.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. A company shouldn't have any issues with the process. The deployment process doesn't take too long. You can manage it with fewer people and smaller teams. This is especially true if it isn't the critical infrastructure that you are working with. 

For deployment and maintenance, you only need two to three people. That can include one manager and two professionals. Since Splunk is easier to handle, more people can join in on the client-side.

We also use QRadar, and we make more money with QRadar than with Splunk as we can make bigger projects happen. However, we find that with Splunk, while we don't make as much money on each project, we can do more of them.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We're using the solution to try to build a virtual network and put Splunk inside it and do some kind of transcentralization with a log server. Our aim is to track connections, network traffic and some personal databases. I'm the founder of the company and we are customers of Splunk.

Splunk can quickly be deployed and it's not difficult to learn the solution. 

The solution could be more user friendly and it's difficult to know at this stage whether our requirements will be met by the solution. 

I've been using this solution for a couple of months. 

The solution is stable. 

Scalability is good with Splunk. 

The initial setup doesn't take much time especially if there's good bandwidth. In a small company deployment might take a month or two. If you have 100 devices then a technical team of three should be sufficient. They would need to be able to deal with log analysis, forensics and have general knowledge about admin systems. In time, we would expect to have thousands of users. 

I think Splunk is expensive compared to other tools at the purchase stage. It's possible that if we can keep control of the costs involved down the track, it won't be so bad.

We studied four or five tools including Logrhythm and Exabeam. We went with Splunk for now and will see how that goes.

I think this is a good solution and rate it a seven out of 10.