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it_user867936 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Looks for incidents which could cause damage to a company's infrastructure
Pros and Cons
  • "Splunk has facilitated the correlation of information security logs to look for incidents which could cause damage to the company's infrastructure, as well as financial losses from leaks."
  • "Splunk can improve regex/asset analysis as we do not want to crawl until it is done."

What is our primary use case?

With the use of Splunk, we were able to identify a brute force attack against a "switch" network device. An external attacker attempted to connect multiple times using multiple usernames. Splunk was able to detect these attempts and immediately blocked these attempts.

How has it helped my organization?

Splunk has facilitated the correlation of information security logs to look for incidents which could cause damage to the company's infrastructure, as well as financial losses from leaks.

What is most valuable?

Splunk's ability to receive all types of data and identify it correctly. It obtains a correlation of the logs and identifies incidents.

What needs improvement?

Splunk can improve regex/asset analysis as we do not want to crawl until it is done. I could not find a timestamp for when the log was processed and generated.

Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Splunk Enterprise Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Cloud Operations Analyst at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Makes us much faster finding and addressing issues
Pros and Cons
  • "We are much faster finding and addressing issues with Splunk."
  • "I would like to get visibility into the data pipelines on heavy forwarders and indexers to see exactly their source and the cause of saturation when it occurs. This would help us learn even more about our high use applications."

What is our primary use case?

Splunk is our monitoring and investigating Swiss Army knife for key applications and systems. If we run it, we Splunk it.

How has it helped my organization?

We are much faster finding and addressing issues with Splunk. We reduce the MTR and get more done.

What is most valuable?

So many of Splunk's features are invaluable to us:  

  • Machine and business data retention
  • Solid HA and distribution
  • Adaptability to custom data
  • Search, Search, Search.

What needs improvement?

I would like to get visibility into the data pipelines on heavy forwarders and indexers to see exactly their source and the cause of saturation when it occurs. This would help us learn even more about our high use applications.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No scalability issues.

How is customer service and technical support?

The support team is very competent.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented in-house

What was our ROI?

Our ROI is high.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated LogRhythm.

What other advice do I have?

I love this product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Splunk Enterprise Security
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Splunk Enterprise Security. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Integration Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Fast availability of operational data spread across several servers is nice, but the MES is a complex system.

What is most valuable?

What Splunk calls operational intelligence: fast availability of operational data spread across several servers to prevent or react faster to outages or performance decreases.

How has it helped my organization?

MES is a complex and very critical distributed system here. Production WIP is directly connected to it and ICT is required to provide a continuous availability and very stable performance (line production has a costant speed, software cannot slowdown). Collect operational data from hardware, middleware and application software can potentially improve ICT proactive and reactive tasks.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've ever used it, just studied it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use a traditional monitor, and Microsoft SCOM.

What was our ROI?

Every stop or slowdown of the production line means lost of money, e.g. 30% reduction when compared to the current baseline.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Every stop or slowdown of the production line means lost of money, e.g. 30% of reduction compare to the current baseline.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

IBM QRadar

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Great Log Management and Investigation tool, but Operational SIEM capability needs improvement

Valuable Features

Great Log management capabilities with flexible and comprehensive search capabilities. Scalable and Easy to use.

Room for Improvement

Operational Workflow, Use Case Framework, and ticketing systems to make it suitable for SOC environments

Use of Solution

3 years

Scalability Issues

Splunk is extremely scalable with the limit being the hardware in use.

Customer Service and Technical Support

If you get the right people engaged, support can be a bliss.

Initial Setup

Setup is simple and straight forward.

Other Advice

http://infosecnirvana.com/splunk-enterprise-need-know/

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Foundation Technology Specialist at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Provides the ability to diagnose problems in production and non-production.
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to rapidly diagnose problems in production and non-production, across hundreds of log files, is the most valuable feature."
  • "It is a challenge to manage the environment in such a way, that one’s log, even with the bandwidth license, isn’t exceeded."

How has it helped my organization?

MTTR is drastically reduced, because the developers and other IT support staff have instant access to log events.

People costs are saved by not having to involve the domain developers from multiple teams, when tracing a problem that spans multiple platforms.

Security is improved by not having to give as many people access to log on to the servers.

What is most valuable?

The ability to rapidly diagnose problems in production and non-production, across hundreds of log files, is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

Official training, even CBT, is expensive so not many people are able to get certified. This leads/causes the users to make use of the most basic functionality only.

It is a challenge to manage the environment in such a way, that one’s log, even with the bandwidth license, isn’t exceeded. Splunk has moved towards not applying hard caps in data ingestion, and this will help us in the future.

However, I’d like an easier way to flag certain source log files as non-critical and have Splunk automatically disable those event sources when the license capacity exceeds an arbitrary value.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

I haven't had the need to log any critical issues. Most of my support tickets have been revolved around configuration questions. I'm very happy with the way Splunk's support staff respond - they're pretty helpful. I think I've only had one situation where the response was acceptable, but not stellar.

Technical Support:

The technical support is good. I'm sometimes surprised when the support engineer doesn't immediately know the answer to my questions (as I feel they must be fairly common queries). But, this can probably be excused because of the breath of features Splunk Enterprise has.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were not using any other solution previously.

I evaluated ELK Stack but at the time, Splunk offered more flexibility, better support and was easier for us to implement.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was fairly straightforward, but we used an experienced implementation partner and ensured that our team was intimately involved in the installation/configuration process on a technical level.

What about the implementation team?

We used a combintation of in-house (ie. myself) and an experienced Splunk partner.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product has a lot of value, and I feel that we’re getting the value that we’re paying for.

Splunk Enterprise becomes extremely expensive after the 20GB/month license, but if you take care of what you log, i.e., by not logging excessive application events, then that license will get you a long way.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at ELK Stack.

What other advice do I have?

Use an experienced Splunk architect to design your infrastructure configuration.

Ensure that your tech leads are intimately involved and understand exactly how the product fits together.

Manage your Splunk configuration in a repository (Git).

Educate the end users as quickly as possible to use the tool effectively.

Change practices and encourage staff to use Splunk instead of old ways of getting the data they need. Prevent, or limit, direct access to the servers or server log files if you can.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
MS Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
MS AlamSystem Administrator at Abdullah Al-Othaim Markets
Real User

i am agree with splunk user who are saying splunk faster then other product.

See all 3 comments
reviewer1643871 - PeerSpot reviewer
President at a non-profit with self employed
Reseller
Expensive, but easy data gathering and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution allows easy gathering and ingestion of the data."
  • "The solution could improve by increasing the performance. We have run into problems when large amounts of data are processed."

What is our primary use case?

We use Splunk for analyzing data.

What is most valuable?

The solution allows easy gathering and ingestion of the data.

What needs improvement?

The solution could improve by increasing the performance. We have run into problems when large amounts of data are processed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Splunk within the past 12 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has been stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Our customers are mostly enterprise-sized companies using this solution. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Splunk has many partners that provide customer support that can be used.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not easy. Customers have to learn the Splunk language and it is hard to operate it by themselves. They will need Splunk engineers to assist in their projects.

What about the implementation team?

You will need a Splunk implementation specialist for the deployment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My customers have found the price of the solution to be high.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Splunk a five out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
it_user126639 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Security Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
In additon to search and analytic capabilities, Splunk has under-the-cover capabilities for timestamp data.

Splunk is a pretty powerful piece of software. There is the obvious search and analytic capabilities it has but there is some robustness under the covers as well. One of those under-the-cover capabilities is detecting and understanding timestamp data. Its the sort of thing that as users of the software we simply accept and generally speaking don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about. 

From an admin perspective as you start to put some effort into understanding your deployment and making sure things are working correctly one of the items to look at is the DateParserVerbose logs. Why you ask? I've recently had to deal with some timstamp issues. These internal logs generally document problems related to timestamp extraction and can tell you if, for example, there are logs being dropped for a variety of timestamp related reasons. 

Dropped events are certainly worthy of some of your time! What about logs that aren't being dropped but for one reason or another Splunk is assigning a timestamp that isn't correct? 

Continue reading this post on my blog here.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1689987 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Center Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
A stable and scalable solution which is easy to install and use and has good tech support
Pros and Cons
  • "I am satisfied with the support."
  • "The price of the solution could be cheaper."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for monitoring systems. We also use it with servers and CG routers from the data center, as well as for collecting the ADL from all networks which are located in our regions of the country.

What is most valuable?

I like that the solution is easy to use and stable. 

What needs improvement?

The price of the solution could be cheaper. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I am currently working with Splunk and have a year's experience doing so. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

Support is at a level one department and I am responsible for managing both IT support and node engineers. 

I am satisfied with the support. 

How was the initial setup?

The solution is easy to install. 

It took half a day. 

What about the implementation team?

We were able to handle the installation on our own. 

There are 40 people responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the solution, four of whom are engineers. There is a computer DE who is responsible for the engineering and a candidate for graduation in 2022.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution could be more cost-effective, as we charge our customers the cheapest price. 

The subscription is monthly. 

What other advice do I have?

The solution is cloud-based. 

There are more than a thousand users making use of the solution in our organization, who are connected with us in over 530 different areas. 

I recommend the solution and plan to continue using it. 

I rate Splunk as a seven out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk Enterprise Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk Enterprise Security Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.