Splunk 4.1 Adds Real-Time Log Management And Search

IT search and log management vendor Splunk has announced the addition of real-time search and analysis capabilities to its flagship product, Splunk 4.1. The latest addition gives administrators the chance to both respond to technical issues as they happen, as well as build an archive of searchable logs for trending purposes.
 
According to Splunk, traditional log management and reporting required a compromise, making administrators choose between an in-depth history at the loss of real time analytics while the logs are indexed, or a scaled-back, real-time process that captures live data for a subset of networked devices, but which limits historical data in the process. Splunk's approach is to take a page from Google's playbook and implement the MapReduce framework into the product. MapReduce enables Splunk 4.1 to distribute processing of incoming log entries among multiple servers, speeding the analysis of these logs up to a near real-time level. Spreading out the load not only delivers the time-sensitive data in short order, but enables Splunk to pull in log data from a larger number of endpoints, giving a more complete view of what is going on throughout the environment.

Splunk 4.1 also includes a number of other enhancements, including the ability to generate and send PDF versions of online reports on a defined schedule, integration with enterprise single sign on solutions. The new version also adds event-driven workflows, enabling Splunk to automate the process of creating trouble tickets, for example, based on specific triggers within the product.

It is not hard to argue that an organization's technology infrastructure is deeply ingrained within the enterprise itself. To that end, the more quickly that administrators can detect a problem, the more proactive they can be resolving the issue. Likewise, understanding both the ups and downs of that infrastructure is knowledge that can no longer be limited to the IT staff.  Senior management and even line-of-business leaders can leverage the real-time impact of web traffic, for example, to quickly see the impact of their marketing strategies and quickly adjust them based on that online intelligence. Products like Splunk are reaching out beyond their IT roots and showing the impact of technology to the company's online presence, as well as its bottom line.