Why are data important?
Every interaction with the digital world generates data—on smartphones, servers, web apps, in the office. These days, a plethora of sensors provide us with data even in places where we would not expect any form of digitisation—in foyers, on production lines, in trains, on bicycles and in cars. All this data harbours information that helps us, but with what?
With everything. For example, it helps businesses become more efficient, more innovative and more secure for their employees and customers. No matter if it’s access to all the different logs that makes our ITOps teams’ day easier, we need to optimise our IT security, we want to service our production machines before they break down, or we want to know how we can better adapt to our customers' needs—data are a helpful tool. So, why are data sometimes overlooked?
It’s not always possible for businesses to collate, correlate and analyse all the data they have, either because they simply aren’t aware of the possibilities, the relevant data are in different formats, or from varying sources in multiple tools, or because it’s just far too complicated to handle and analyse several tools.
How can Splunk help?
Splunk is one of the leading platforms when it comes to transforming data into doing. But why a platform?
Splunk’s technical capabilities make it possible for the platform to collate, process, prepare and analyse any and all relevant data. It doesn’t matter where the data comes from, if or how it is structured and how often it appears.
No matter if data are generated on and by network components, servers, clients, microservices, mobile devices, or by sensors on production machines, regardless of whether it is relevant to the operation and security of IT on-premises or in the cloud, from the perspective of IT security the data can be used to further develop services, optimise and monitor physical production facilities, and improve data-driven business processes. Many times, these are the same pieces of data that bring added value to several areas.
The objective is to turn data into doing, and there are as many examples of this as there are data to be analysed—from reducing MTTR after network and server failures, to UX improvements for websites, to optimising the operations of entire airports.
Splunk can be used in your own environment or as a ready-to-use SaaS solution and can be easily procured from us via the AWS Marketplace.
Have Splunk? What now?
To be able to work successfully with the data, several pieces of the puzzle have to fit together. So what do we need?
- An understanding of data analysis
- An objective
- The right tool
- And the right knowledge to bring it all together.
By using data in decision-making processes, you create a safer, more efficient and more productive environment for your business in just about every area. It’s all possible with Splunk—when you have a partner, who understands your company, can help develop objectives, adapts and implements the solution, and is by your side on the road to a digital future.
If you’re interested in finding out more about Splunk, join our Splunk 4 Rookies workshops to try it out for yourself.
In a three-hour hands-on workshop, we’ll cover …
- an introduction to the Splunk concept
- your own Splunk instance
and you’ll discover how to …
- collect and index data
- search and generate statistics
- and create interactive dashboards.