We use the solution for event management, observability, application management, application performance management, anomaly detection, problem detection, and creating different rules for the anomalies for different events. It's application performance monitoring. The entire area of service is managed by ITSI, and offers automated detection and everything.
Site Reliability Engineering Manager & DevOps Lead Global at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Reduces time to resolve and alert noise but is missing a release comparison feature
Pros and Cons
- "The root cause analysis is very helpful for us."
- "Predictive analytics, in terms of preventing incidents before they occur, still needs time to mature."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The root cause analysis is very helpful for us.
There's one feature which is a prediction and detection feature that we have gone through. We are not thoroughly using it. However, for us, I would say that root cause analysis, problem detection, and anomaly detection are the most helpful features.
The end-to-end visibility of IT assigned to our network environment is great. The endpoint visibility is definitely helpful, and that is mainly for the application team. We can take a deep dive into the incident. In the everyday work that we do, we don't really use endpoint visibility since that is not required if we look at normal and general use cases. That said, when it comes to an incident during an outage, end-to-end visibility helps us deep dive or drill down to find out the root cause and how to make the platform better for the future.
The product has helped to streamline our incident management with end-to-end visibility. It helps in streamlining the incidents that are coming in. For example, for the authentication service that we have, users for certain regions are not able to authenticate completely. That likely means there's an issue with that region. That is an incident. In that case, I would look at endpoint visibility from the infrastructure to the end of the service call, including all the scans, tracing, and everything. Looking at it helps provide a resolution.
Our alert noise has been reduced.
Our main time to detect has been reduced as well. Previously, we used to take a lot of time getting to the root cause of what happened. We've been able to resolve this quicker, and our main time to detect has been drastically reduced.
In addition, we've been able to reduce the time to resolve.
What needs improvement?
Predictive analytics, in terms of preventing incidents before they occur, still needs time to mature. I am not very, I would say, convinced of the prediction feature's capabilities.
It does not have a release comparison on the server comparison feature. For example, if you have an application, and you introduce a new feature, and you're going to deploy it, then the release comparisons should show automatically or generate a report to show the impact of the feature on the overall application. It should show what you can do to optimize it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for around five years.
Buyer's Guide
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is highly scalable and flexible.
How are customer service and support?
I've contacted support multiple times. Their service is average. They are not very quick.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used a few different solutions, like Dynatrace and Datadog. I've used Elasticsearch and Moogsoft as well.
Dynatrace is an overall package. I'd choose it over ITSI. Splunk is never a package. It does not provide application performance monitoring. Dynatrace is a full-fledged APM tool that includes infrastructure, APM, synthetic monitoring, and user monitoring alongside AI ops, which are very strong. It's a mature platform.
How was the initial setup?
I was involved in the initial setup. It's a very straightforward process. Deploying the platform takes a couple of hours at a maximum. The configuration is more subjective in terms of how long it takes. For example, how many applications do you have? How many environments? We have three environments in the US, and with approvals, it took us around 20 days.
It's a SaaS solution and does not require maintenance. It's a one-click upgrade if you want to upgrade anything.
What about the implementation team?
Once you buy a license, Splunk is involved and can help with the deployment. They have three or four free consulting sessions initially. They are very involved in the pilot phase. post-pilot, you have regular support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is expensive. It's one of the most expensive options, although maybe not as expensive as Datadog.
What other advice do I have?
We might be partners with Splunk.
It's readily available. You don't have to wait very long to witness the benefits of the solution.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
If you are looking for an AI solution alongside APM, use a platform with everything in place. However, if you still want to go for a dedicated AIS platform, make sure it integrates with your existing logging and APM tools. However, my position is that it's better to use one platform for the entire opportunity.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Manager at Norwin Technologies
We can optimize business processes and systems, and reduce alert noise
Pros and Cons
- "ITSI provides a visual representation of complex tools and context, using color coding and other features to make it easy for anyone at the monitoring or service desk to use."
- "Splunk ITSI consumes a lot of CPU resources."
What is our primary use case?
We use Splunk ITSI for better CMDB management and control of all infrastructure devices.
We had many old devices and legacy systems, and architects used to configure them as they saw fit. To streamline and standardize our operations, we had to rely on Splunk. Splunk invented device discovery, which allowed us to learn what devices are on the network, what type they are, and how to classify them. Splunk ITSI has been very helpful to us.
We deployed Splunk ITSI on-premises, and it can also be deployed in the cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
Splunk ITSI helps the advisory board's cab team increase efficiency by instilling trust in systems over manual administrators. Splunk ITSI also provides a central source for the documentation of our application dependencies.
Splunk ITSI provides end-to-end visibility into our network environment, which reduces the manual effort required to capture configuration data and helps us identify weaknesses in our network.
Once we have implemented the CMDB to meet our requirements, Splunk ITSI's predictive analytics can identify any devices that will be affected by planned changes and provide us with that information. This will allow us to prioritize incidents based on their criticality and notify stakeholders accordingly.
Splunk ITSI has helped our organization in many ways. It has centralized all resources for administrators and service personnel. Architects can plan better using the environmental details provided by ITSI. The CAB team can provide approvals quickly because the information is easily accessible. Splunk ITSI is reliable, and its AI-driven predictive analytics help identify potential component or device failures.
Splunk ITSI streamlined our incident management by allowing Splunk administrators to easily see all incident details and cascade them down to relevant stakeholders and customers. This enabled us to inform the service desk team so they could better prepare responses to end-user queries. We can also easily identify and address infrastructure challenges affecting specific companies.
It helps reduce our alert noise by a minimum of ten percent and it can go significantly more. We categorize and close alerts directly through ServiceNow after integrating our account. This automated process frees up our admins' time to focus on more important tasks.
Splunk ITSI has reduced our MTTD by over ten percent. We can meet our SLAs with Splunk ITSI 99.8 percent of the time. It has also reduced our MTTR by five to ten percent each quarter. We can resolve almost 90 percent of our tickets.
What is most valuable?
With Splunk ITSI, we can optimize business processes and systems. ITSI provides a visual representation of complex tools and context, using color coding and other features to make it easy for anyone at the monitoring or service desk to use. This also enables proactive responses to trends and events, as events are already segregated based on how they have been mapped.
What needs improvement?
Splunk ITSI consumes a lot of CPU resources. I would like a more lightweight solution in terms of resource consumption.
The price has room for improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk ITSI for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Splunk ITSI is stable.
Resilience is valuable because it functions perfectly, helping to reduce risk and assist our admins and architects.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk ITSI is scalable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used our internal CMDB solution, which was not streamlined and depended on a few key architects. We wanted more control and better governance, so we switched to Splunk ITSI.
How was the initial setup?
The difficulty level of the deployment depends on the knowledge of those doing the implementation. A person with moderate knowledge will require some time to do all the configurations.
Our deployment took around four to six weeks to complete.
What was our ROI?
I have seen ROI from Splunk ITSI of close to 30 percent at both my current and previous organizations. The returns have been presented to leadership.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of the modules is a bit high for non-global companies, making it difficult for them to afford Splunk ITSI.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk ITSI eight out of ten.
Splunk ITSI is the best application performance monitoring tool because it helps administrators do their jobs better, has more computing power, and allows staff to focus on governance and automation.
Organizations may benefit from considering a point monitoring system instead of Splunk ITSI, depending on their environment.
We achieved time to value with Splunk ITSI within the first four to six weeks of deployment.
Splunk ITSI is deployed across multiple departments in our organization and there are 20 users.
Maintenance is required for updates.
I recommend Splunk ITSI. The solution can discover all types of devices in our environment.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Buyer's Guide
Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence)
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Officer at State Street
Enables us to consolidate tools but it should improve its pricing
Pros and Cons
- "Alerts and episodes are valuable to me."
- "The solution should integrate more features in NEAP."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to monitor our own internal applications. We monitor analogs and various other DB Connect sources.
How has it helped my organization?
The tool has replaced some other products in our organization. It’s coming in very handy.
What is most valuable?
Alerts and episodes are valuable to me. These features put all notable events together and give us an opportunity to take action.
What needs improvement?
We can take actions based on NEAPs, like emails and service now tickets. It is pretty basic at the moment. The solution should integrate more features in NEAP.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is pretty stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is extremely scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I work with a lot of Splunk’s support people. I like them. They're all good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using a software called Genius. We use Splunk IT Service Intelligence now, and it's more cost-effective overall.
What about the implementation team?
I have been maintaining the solution. The product is straightforward to maintain. We just need to follow the best practices, and it works. We have a lot of users, so it's difficult controlling what the users do in the environment.
What was our ROI?
The tool is a centralized place to collect all our data and compute against it. It has the potential for an ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing has some room for improvement.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated other options, but Splunk seemed to be the best. It is the industry leader, so it was a no-brainer.
What other advice do I have?
We have an on-prem instance. Everything's pretty much on-prem. We work with cloud logs. Monitoring multiple cloud environments using the solution is pretty straightforward and easy. It is extremely important to us that the solution has end-to-end visibility into our cloud-native environment.
The solution has helped reduce our mean time to resolve. The product has helped improve our organization’s business resilience. Its ability to predict, identify, and solve problems in real-time is pretty good as long as the source is good and we use it well.
The tool’s ability to provide business resilience by empowering staff is alright. We have experienced cost efficiencies by switching to Splunk IT Service Intelligence. I know it used to be ingestion, and now it's like a CPU. It's always evolving. I was not involved in the initial setup. The solution still has some room for improvement.
Overall, I rate the product a six or seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Splunk Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
An intelligent and scalable platform for operational excellence
Pros and Cons
- "The service analyzer view and automatic creation of incidents are valuable."
- "The biggest improvement area is making it open to developers. Right now, it is very closed. It can only be downloaded by people who have a license to and not everyone. If it is open to everybody, more people will use it."
What is our primary use case?
Splunk ITSI is a product for operations. I use it for detecting issues in the operations and generating alerts for them.
It is an intelligence platform for operational excellence.
How has it helped my organization?
The end-to-end visibility is a great thing about Splunk ITSI. It provides an end-to-end view to any user, from a normal engineer to a high-level manager.
We were able to realize the benefits of Splunk ITSI immediately.
Splunk ITSI helps to right-size resources to match the demand. It improves the quality. It is more organized. It can definitely help in rightsizing.
It helps to avoid duplicated alerts. If rightly implemented, it can reduce the duplication of alerts and provide more specific and accurate context.
Splunk ITSI has helped reduce incident volume. The reduction is implementation-dependent. If it is rightly implemented, we can reduce it to a very low percentage. Out of 100, we get only 10 alerts. If the context is correct, we only need one alert. This can be achieved with ITSI.
Splunk ITSI has helped reduce our alert noise, but I do not have the numbers because the initial implementation was not right. There were so many alerts, but when we corrected the implementation, it reduced them by a lot. I do not have the numbers, but thousands have become hundreds.
Splunk ITSI has helped reduce our mean time to detect (MTTD). It is at least five minutes. The mean time to resolve is dependent on the team. I do not have control over that because, in Splunk ITSI, we generate alerts for multiple teams, not just one team. It all depends on their SLAs.
Splunk ITSI helps us to automate alerting and automatically generate alerts or create incidents. It is not an automation tool to reduce mundane tasks.
Splunk ITSI helped us save costs by reducing downtime and manpower costs or avoiding SLA penalties.
What is most valuable?
The service analyzer view and automatic creation of incidents are valuable.
What needs improvement?
Better documentation would definitely help. Many people do not know about it, so better documentation and use case explanations would be helpful. There should be more YouTube videos about how to implement ITSI
The biggest improvement area is making it open to developers. Right now, it is very closed. It can only be downloaded by people who have a license to and not everyone. If it is open to everybody, more people will use it.
For how long have I used the solution?
It has been quite a long time. It has been more than four or five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is pretty stable. If we have the proper infrastructure, this tool is very stable. It does not crash.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability is high. It can scale very well. You can increase the size of the cluster. You can increase the capacity vertically and horizontally. It is very scalable.
How are customer service and support?
They are good. They respond based on the SLAs. The quality of service depends on how informative you are when you provide the case details to them, but they have the ability to escalate it to higher levels and get help. They have the skills, but sometimes, the support is not in the UK. It sometimes comes from the US, so there may be time constraints when you set up a call. Otherwise, they are good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used other solutions. In the old days, I used a BMC system. Splunk ITSI is a completely different type of alerting system.
The BMC solution is more monotonic. It does not have the intelligence like Splunk ITSI to reduce the noise. It just picks up a metric and alerts based on that threshold, whereas, in ITSI, we have the control to reduce the number of alerts generated on the same threshold by adding some intelligence to it. It has the ability to do that Intelligence part. That is why it is called ITSI.
How was the initial setup?
We have both on-premises and cloud deployment models. Its deployment is difficult for a beginner user. You need a consultant or somebody experienced in Splunk ITSI to implement it properly. Splunk ITSI is a premium product. You need very good Splunk infrastructure initially to run this on top. To run it properly, you should have good knowledge. You should at least have Splunk Architect-level certification. Otherwise, you can implement it, but it will not work properly or as you expect.
It is mostly a clustered solution. It is not normally done on a single server. We need to build the entire cluster. The initial build probably can take two weeks. Configuring everything can take a long time. Six months can be considered a good time to make it run properly for enterprise usage.
It needs regular upgrades, backups, and time-to-time updates to the system configurations. It requires a dedicated team. Once it is properly set up, less than ten people can manage it.
What about the implementation team?
I am an ITSI consultant, so I am not a user. I set it up for customers.
The number of people required depends on how much data we need to bring in. If we have a lot of data and a variety of systems, more people are required. If we are just focusing on a singular system, one person can do the job.
In an enterprise environment, there are a multitude of systems and monitoring requirements. Usually, there is a team onboarding data and setting it up. 10-15 people are a good choice for a big enterprise, like a banking client.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is more of a premium product. I do not have much visibility into pricing because it is taken care of by high-level enterprise customers. I just ask for the license that I need and they negotiate. It all happens between Splunk and the company. I know that it is expensive, but I do not think there is another solution that can do similar things for that price.
What other advice do I have?
To someone who already has an IT alerting and incident management solution but is considering switching to Splunk ITSI, I would say that it will add value to their organization. It can reduce a lot of noise. I would suggest going for it, but it should be the right implementation. You should have knowledgeable people to implement it from the beginning.
It is not something that you just buy and switch on and will start working. It needs a lot of configuration and proper configuration to make it run properly. That is an important part for Splunk ITSI. It is not just the product. The person who is implementing it should be very good. Then only its value can be seen. Otherwise, you have the application but may not get the right value out of it.
Overall, from my experience, I would rate Splunk ITSI an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Aug 19, 2024
Flag as inappropriateData Engineer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Has an excellent ability to provide business resilience by empowering staff
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the Glass Tables. It gives you a nice, good overview of your KPIs. It's really slick and clean."
- "It could be a little easier to use with the thresholding. We've struggled a little bit with thresholding."
What is our primary use case?
We have medical use cases. We monitor batch processes for our medical system. We batch-process data ingestion from our data warehouses just to make sure they're performing appropriately. If there's an outlier we'll report it or create an incident.
How has it helped my organization?
Splunk has just started to improve my organization. It's still in its infancy. We still have some kinks to work out, but it's actually giving us much better visibility than creating a normal Splunk dashboard. It's an easier process in that regard.
It has 100% improved my organization's business resilience. We're able to get better metrics. We have a project where we've actually saved the organization millions of dollars in regards to lost revenue. We were using Splunk Dashboards to determine a situation where billing wasn't being done correctly. Billing was never actually sent out to insurance companies, then that's where we found things that were falling between the cracks.
In terms of cost efficiencies, we're able to find situations where patient care is falling below the thresholds. We have other projects that are coming into play that are going to be huge for the organization that will be reporting back to the state.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the Glass Tables. It gives you a nice, good overview of your KPIs. It's really slick and clean.
Splunk's ability to predict, identify and solve problems in real time is excellent. We were able to see things we haven't been able to see before just because the data from multiple systems is so helpful.
Its ability to provide business resilience by empowering staff is excellent. Everybody wants to use it.
What needs improvement?
It could be a little easier to use with the thresholding. We've struggled a little bit with thresholding.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Splunk ITSI for one and a half to two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Their stability is excellent. It's not a Windows product. I don't have to restart it. It's a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale horizontally. It's a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is good. During the time of COVID, it took a while to get somebody to get back to us, but that was expected. Overall, the support has been good. We haven't had many issues. We'll dig deep into the weeds before we even bother calling Splunk.
I would rate support a seven out of ten. I wish their response time was better.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before ITSI, we had Datadog and there was one other product we were managing. We didn't have any visibility into it, and Splunk is a very visible product versus other ones where it's a little more locked down from the access respective.
We switched to Splunk because of the ease of use and the ability to ingest logs from pretty much everywhere.
We had some in-house solutions, which weren't great because we were building in .NET versus something that's like Splunk, which we can pull data from everywhere, including from a .NET solution.
How was the initial setup?
I was the first one to deploy it at the organization. We started with me and one manager, and then it turned into a team of five engineers, we had a riff, and we were down to three.
We made the mistake of initially deploying it on Windows. We learned very quickly that that was a big mistake and then we switched over to a Linux environment. In general, the deployment wasn't that bad. The documentation that Splunk offers has always been great. If we had any questions, we always went to support with those questions. It was pretty simple.
What was our ROI?
Other departments have seen ROI through being able to offer better and more efficient patient care.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We like the old perpetual licensing model but everybody's going more towards the two-year. I think the professional services hours thrown in there is actually a pretty good benefit.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk ITSI a nine out of ten. Not a ten because the learning curve makes it tricky.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Splunk Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Provides a comprehensive analysis, and end-to-end visibility, but predictive analytics has room for improvement
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are the mapping of the entities, which provides a comprehensive analysis, and the service analyzer for thresholding."
- "Splunk ITSI generates numerous false positives and has the potential for enhancement."
What is our primary use case?
We typically utilize Splunk ITSI to monitor our infrastructure and applications. Essentially, its purpose is to map our technical services and business services up to the host level, enabling us to monitor all the key performance indicators associated with them. Additionally, it serves as a primary tool for root cause analysis and event generation.
We needed a better method for monitoring our infrastructure and applications. Both infrastructure monitoring and application monitoring rely on data files. With Splunk ITSI, we are able to visualize the mapping of end-user entities to the business service. This enables us to easily monitor the impact of our technical services on our business, as well as the underlying information, using Splunk ITSI.
We deploy on Splunk Cloud and, in addition, we utilize ITSI on top of Splunk Cloud. We have another setup where we use Splunk on-premise along with ITSI. Therefore, our team has employed both models. However, if we have a high injection rate and operate in a large environment, we leverage Splunk Cloud with ITSI since we are already utilizing it.
How has it helped my organization?
End-to-end visibility is achievable with Splunk ITSI. The key requirement is to successfully onboard the data into our robust Splunk ITSI environment, allowing us to gain insight and visibility into all our services within Splunk ITSI.
Splunk ITSI has helped improve our organization by enhancing bandwidth efficiency and serving as a unified resource for monitoring, root cause analysis, and infrastructure monitoring. Instead of relying on multiple monitoring solutions like Elasticsearch, ThousandEyes, SolarWinds, and Netcool for network monitoring, Splunk ITSI enables us to accomplish all these tasks with a single tool. In order to determine if it is deriving its value or not, we cannot state with absolute certainty that we are assessing the value. However, for certain use cases, we can observe the value within a week. But for the majority of complex scenarios, in order to fully utilize the potential of Splunk ITSI, it would take at least a month for us to realize its complete value.
Splunk ITSI has the capability to reduce our alert noise. The maturity of Splunk ITSI depends on the data we have and the level of expertise of the engineer implementing it. Since its implementation, the alert noise has been significantly reduced.
Splunk ITSI has helped us reduce the meantime associated with deep dive services.
Splunk ITSI has helped us reduce the meantime resolve. Instead of searching for multiple resources to identify the exact points, we can now analyze deep dives and services to pinpoint where the issue is occurring before it affects our system.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the mapping of the entities, which provides a comprehensive analysis, and the service analyzer for thresholding.
What needs improvement?
Splunk ITSI's predictive analytics has room for improvement. Currently, it is limited to predicting only the health score for the next thirty minutes of the business. Consequently, we are unable to predict our health score for a full day or even for seven days. The system's capability is limited to the next thirty days, and we need enhancements to enable us to predict the health score at least seven days in advance. Furthermore, the available algorithms are also quite limited, with only around eight to nine algorithms, including linear regression and classification. We lack a diverse range of machine learning algorithms within Splunk ITSI, which is a contributing factor to the issue. Additionally, the implementation process for Splunk ITSI is quite challenging, as we struggle to find well-trained resources capable of translating our business use cases into technical outcomes effectively using Splunk ITSI. This is a crucial aspect that needs attention.
Splunk ITSI generates numerous false positives and has the potential for enhancement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk ITSI for over four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability depends on the infrastructure being used in ITSI. If we use their infrastructure, it means the entire server has acquired performance capability, resulting in good stability. However, when it comes to the cloud, stability is not a concern as everything is managed by Splunk. Therefore, the majority of our focus in ITSI is on the implementation part, where we need to translate the application team's requirements into technical use cases. This process requires a significant investment of our time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale Splunk ITSI based on our requirements with no limitations.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good, but not excellent.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used ThousandEyes, SolarWinds, and Netcool before migrating to Splunk and implementing Splunk ITSI.
What was our ROI?
Our team can enhance the value of Splunk ITSI by providing a single-pane-of-glass solution. This allows them to quickly identify potential performance issues in both their applications and infrastructure and conduct root cause analysis within a short timeframe. Previously, they had to consult multiple sources and correlate information, but now this process has become significantly easier. This is how we derive value from Splunk ITSI. Additionally, the team benefits from a single dashboard that enables them to pinpoint the exact location of performance issues, whether it's in the infrastructure layer, the malware layer, or within the application itself. They are capable of doing this effectively.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Splunk ITSI is an expensive tool, and we need to purchase the utility license. Our sales team handles the license cost, so I'm not aware of the exact amount we need to pay, but it's significantly higher compared to other tool sets.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated AppDynamics and Dynatrace, but when considering factors such as cost per data localization and other considerations, since we had already invested in Splunk and found it beneficial, we decided to choose Splunk ITSI over AppDynamics and Dynatrace.
What other advice do I have?
I give Splunk ITSI a six out of ten.
In terms of incident management, we can integrate Splunk ITSI with our ITAM or ITSM layer, such as ServiceNow. However, the problem is that we often receive events and scheduled episodes from Splunk ITSI that do not meet our expectations when it comes to implementing filter sorting. As a result, we have to deal with a lot of false positives that need to be addressed before integrating with Splunk ITSM.
There are certain features, such as synthetic monitoring, analysis monitoring, and alert directors, that are not available with Splunk ITSI. Users need to be aware of the features they require before choosing an APM solution.
We have around fifty people using Splunk ITSI.
We require periodic maintenance from our end. Once we create all the key performance indicators, we need to handle additional use cases that need to be developed. If there are any issues, the team intends to onboard new data and add more servers to this particular part. They are mapping it to the KPIs, but we need to take care of it.
When evaluating Splunk ITSI, the first thing we should be clear about is the desired outcome we want to achieve from ITSI. We need to determine whether we are hiring it for specific requests or if the identified use cases by our teams can be effectively implemented using ITSI. We should not overlook this aspect. While ITSI has the potential to work wonders, implementing it can be quite challenging. It requires expertise in configuring services on the ITSI side, as it is data-intensive. Therefore, unless we have a highly skilled Splunk engineer who can handle ITSI, we won't be able to fully realize its value.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Splunk Engineer at Prudent Technologies and Consulting, Inc.
Provides good visibility, reduces alert noise, and improves detection
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is event correlation, which ensures that only one ticket is generated per issue, eliminating duplicates and reducing noise from multiple alerts."
- "While integrating services and KPIs in ITSI is straightforward, I found it challenging to analyze them with the service analyzers; specifically, using the deep dive feature to pinpoint the exact source and time of an issue proved difficult."
What is our primary use case?
We used Splunk ITSI to monitor service health and key performance indicators across various servers, such as CPU, memory, and disk utilization—advanced detection capabilities based on defined thresholds and triggered alerts. Splunk ITSI, integrated with ServiceNow, facilitated alert generation and management. Additionally, we leveraged ITSI for event analytics and created glass tables based on configuration items. We monitored specific KPIs and generated alerts via ServiceNow based on established thresholds to meet customer requirements.
Some clients have Splunk ITSI deployed in the cloud, and others are on-premises.
How has it helped my organization?
Using a client example, I'll explain the end-to-end visibility provided by Splunk ITSI. We have over a hundred clients in our environment. Once we onboard client data, such as cloud data, we subscribe to that cloud service and integrate the data into our Splunk environment. We then create data models and correlations integrated with the ITSI service. Within ITSI, we create correlation searches and schedule them to run regularly. Each time the Splunk schedule runs, it generates notable events and checks policies to determine if an event qualifies for a ticket. If it qualifies, an episode is created in ITSI, and a ticket is automatically generated in ServiceNow. This is the complete end-to-end process within Splunk ITSI.
We use predictive analytics based on the threshold values to help prevent incidents before they occur.
It does not take long after deployment for our clients to realize the benefits of Splunk ITSI because it immediately reduces alert noise.
Both Splunk ITSI and Splunk Enterprise Security handle incident management, but Enterprise Security utilizes common data models for improved detection. ITSI employs an "episode review" concept to analyze incidents, examining their generation, root cause, trigger alert, and any alerting failures. This provides comprehensive observability of each episode. Similarly, when integrating Enterprise Security with customer systems, pre-built common data models generate alerts that require monitoring to determine their cause, priority, and severity.
Splunk ITSI, using the correlation through event management, can reduce our alert noise.
We can correlate information to receive only relevant alerts, allowing us to quickly respond to issues.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is event correlation, which ensures that only one ticket is generated per issue, eliminating duplicates and reducing noise from multiple alerts. This significantly streamlines issue tracking and resolution. Additionally, the system analyzes service performance by identifying areas of impact and tracking key performance indicators. This deep-dive analysis allows for the precise identification of issues and facilitates data-driven improvements.
What needs improvement?
While integrating services and KPIs in ITSI is straightforward, I found it challenging to analyze them with the service analyzers; specifically, using the deep dive feature to pinpoint the exact source and time of an issue proved difficult. Although I'm proficient in service analytics management, the deep dive aspect requires further development.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk ITSI for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Splunk ITSI is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk ITSI is scalable. It is easy to scale on the cloud platform.
How are customer service and support?
The Splunk support team is adequate, but their response time is slow.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is straightforward. We acquired a license and integrated it into our current Splunk environment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Splunk ITSI is a premium application and comes with a premium price tag.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Splunk ITSI nine out of ten. Splunk ITSI is a valuable tool for IT and operations teams.
I recommend Splunk ITSI. It's an excellent tool for infrastructure monitoring, direct management, and service analytics, providing a clear, consolidated view of your IT environment.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Last updated: Oct 7, 2024
Flag as inappropriateAIOPS Architect at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
The solution has a correlation layer where you can normalize the events from different sources
Pros and Cons
- "What I like the most is the event correlations. It's a file structure, and ITSI has a correlation layer where you can normalize the events from different sources. Once these events are normalized, you set up rules to aggregate them into different or the same attributes. After the rules are defined, you can automate the process to solve the issue automatically."
- "One thing ITSI could improve on is the maintenance windows. I have a huge case where I had to implement something related to the maintenance window. If you try to look up the issues in ITSI, you have to check the incidents individually, and putting hundreds of hosts in maintenance can be a hindrance."
What is our primary use case?
I use ITSI for different companies but with the same objective: to correlate alerts from different sources and assess them according to multiple frameworks. For example, I can combine the alerts from different sources into a single episode. The analyst can resolve the issue without looking in multiple places to get the necessary information.
How has it helped my organization?
ITSI was initially challenging, but you can pick it up quickly once you understand the concept. It also depends on the goal. Combining different sources into episodes is one thing, but integrating ITSI with automation or other ITSM solutions may take longer.
The solution has a forecasting module. You must have a good infrastructure because AI takes a lot of processing, but it works well. Based on previous data, you can assess it in 30 minutes or so. Having that predictive ability is a lifesaver.
It can streamline incident management. ITSI has a feature called Teams that lets you control access to different services to control which teams are responsible. You can control permissions and everything else. Everyone is assigned to a team with a unique experience while using the frame of the platform.
ITSI has a feature called NetFlow. It depends on what you plug into it, but in my use case, we usually click alerts before they become incidents and measure how many alerts become incidents to get an idea of how much it's helping to resolve things before they turn into incidents and have an impact.
It has helped to reduce alert noise because we can group alerts from different sources into one ITSM ticket with information from various sources. This helps our team resolve the issue because they only need to look at a single ticket instead of opening multiple ITSMs to gather all the necessary information to assess the problem.
The amount of alert noise reduced depends on the maturity of the environment. When you set up rules to aggregate events, you have to know some information about those events, like the team that created them, the system they belong to, the impact, and whether they're infrastructure, a service, or an application. If you have those all set up, it could be a 75 percent noise reduction.
ITSI reduced our meantime to detection because ITSI is plugged into each search, and as soon as an event is detected, it's processed and sent to the responsible team. It has helped us to detect issues and resolve them faster so we can provide more information upfront to IT.
It helps the IT team resolve things faster, but it depends on the information that ITSI is grouping. If you have enough information to find the root cause, it can help to resolve everything quicker. For example, let's say an analyst is looking at five impacted services, but one of them is the root cause. If we can provide that information upfront to the analyst, he can resolve the issue much faster because he doesn't have to look at each separately to assess the cause.
ITSI has helped us automate some tasks. Many issues aren't easily solved. You must have good communication with the team and analysts to see the steps they take to resolve something, but it can tackle the most common issues and free up time. But you must be careful not to automate something a developer should fix. Automation helps a lot, but you can't automate everything.
What is most valuable?
What I like the most is the event correlations. It's a file structure, and ITSI has a correlation layer where you can normalize the events from different sources. Once these events are normalized, you set up rules to aggregate them into different or the same attributes. After the rules are defined, you can automate the process to solve the issue automatically.
Generally, the visibility is decent, but you need to set it up properly to have good visibility in a way that makes sense to see the issues you need to see. In ITSI, you have the concept of services and a service tree. If it's set up correctly, it can help you find the root cause of a problem. You need someone who understands ITSI and your business.
What needs improvement?
One thing ITSI could improve on is the maintenance windows. I have a huge case where I had to implement something related to the maintenance window. If you try to look up the issues in ITSI, you have to check the incidents individually, and putting hundreds of hosts in maintenance can be a hindrance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Splunk ITSI for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate ITSI nine out of 10. I've had issues before, but they are usually caused by the configuration or infrastructure. You have to be careful when deploying Splunk across your infrastructure.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
ITSI is scalable, but its engine is somewhat of a weakness. The engine runs on one machine, but ITSI is scalable because even though the engine runs on one machine, it assigns processes to other machines to work on. You can do well with ITSI horizontally, but sometimes, you need to think vertically because the processing takes some memory.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Splunk support seven out of 10. Like any support, how fast they respond depends on the priority. Overall, they've helped a lot and were willing to enter a call to see the environment and the issues themselves. I would say do a good job overall.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The complexity depends on your infrastructure. It's a lot easier if you have a single instance, but deploying on a cluster requires a little care. The package formats are specific to the roles of your cluster. We have to be careful with that. It's not too difficult. You can set it up in a day or two if you read the documentation.
One person can set it up, depending on the size of the cluster. For example, if it only has two machines, one person can do it easily. You can set up a batch script to accelerate the installation. If you have that setup, you can do it easily in a day with one person. If you don't have that, it could take up to two days if you don't have much experience with ITSI.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Splunk ITSI eight out of 10. I would recommend Splunk ITSI, depending on the company's context. If the ITSM solution they have serves them well, I don't think it's necessary to switch to ITSI because it's costly. I would only recommend it to someone who knows they will get a return and have the capital to invest. Small companies probably have a bit of difficulty using ITSI. If you're a big company having issues, ITSI can help you out.
I recommend new users read the documentation carefully and watch a few videos on it. The first thing is to wrap your head around the concept. If you try to speculate at once without understanding a few things, it could be a lot more difficult. It's helpful if they stop and read the documentation to understand each piece.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Aug 25, 2024
Flag as inappropriateBuyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2025
Product Categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and ObservabilityPopular Comparisons
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- How do you decide about the alert severity in your Security Operations Center (SOC)?
- What is an incident response playbook and how is it used in SOAR?
- What is the difference between mitigation and remediation in incident response?
- What tools and solutions do you use for automated incident response in an enterprise in 2022?
- What measures should a business have in place to enable an effective incident response for data breaches?
- Why a Security Operations Center (SOC) is important?
- When evaluating Incident Management Software, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- What are some Incident management best practices to keep in mind?
- GoDaddy has been hacked again. What can be done better?
- Why is IT Alerting and Incident Management important for companies?