Data spelunking with Splunk

A company which says its technology creates a new category of operational intelligence platforms is eyeing up the New Zealand market – and local resellers.

Splunk indexes and makes searchable machine data from any app, server or network device, making the data viewable through some 300 applications providing cookie cutter views.

“We are doing something different,” Dan Miller, Splunk ANZ country manager, says. Miller says in simpliest terms, Splunk is ‘Google for your data center’.

“If you boil it down, we apply indexing and search technologies to your machine generated data, such as system logs, call data records for telecommunications companies, database audit tables, Apache log files and so on to provide real time business insights.

“From the user perspective the search interfaces required by network operators are different to those for a business person or someone else. They’re looking for different insights,” Miller says. He says Splunk allows the data from across an organisation to be pulled together and then provided to end users depending on their needs.

The Nasdaq-listed company has more than 120 customers across Australia and New Zealand, with some 4500 worldwide.

“We’ve had strong growth in the region and globally,” Miller says, adding that the company’s traditional markets include government, telco, banking and utilities. “A lot start smaller [testing the waters with the Splunk offering] and grow over time.”

Earlier this year Splunk appointed Westcon as its New Zealand distributor, and the company has two resellers here, including GKC, the first authorised training partner in New Zealand. “They were a Splunk customer, involved in deploying it at a government agency, and have now build their company around Splunk software and consulting.”

Last month Splunk ran its first local branded events with SplunkLive targeting potential partners.

Miller says most partners will bolt the Splunk offering onto their existing skills and capabilities. “If you’re a security specialist, or a networking specialist or whatever, Splunk can add value-add analytics and it’s a really small change to what you’re already doing.

“We want to work more collaboratively with partners to help drive revenue and business growth more quickly.”

The company also recently had its first New Zealand business hire – a former Splunk customer, now working as a worldwide developer evangelist for the company.