Monitoring has improved operational visibility and supports fast, customizable alert dashboards
What is our primary use case?
I work for a managed service provider, so I have different clients that require help in assessing various tools. I work with Splunk, ScienceLogic, and Nagios most frequently because I have small clients as well.
We have Splunk Observability Cloud for some customers. The dashboards are good, and everything is nice, but unfortunately, it doesn't have long-term storage of the logs. So you need to use a data lake to store the logs.
I would like to see agentless deployment and better integration with ticketing systems like ServiceNow, which is the biggest.
We utilize the ability to enrich data with custom metrics in Splunk Observability Cloud to create tickets in ServiceNow. It is integrated with ServiceNow, but we enrich the tickets by putting the logs in the tickets and things of that nature, so it helps us. However, even that is a mixed approach. From Splunk Observability Cloud, you cannot put the logs directly in the tickets. Instead, it will create a ticket and send you an email with the logs. That integration could be improved.
What is most valuable?
Splunk Observability Cloud has helped me improve my operational performance and my customer's operational performance because we use alerting, so we find when things are not working.
I think it is very good for evaluating the effectiveness of Splunk Observability Cloud in improving digital resilience within my customer's environment.
It does provide some return on investment. It is beneficial in terms of finance to use it.
The dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud are amazing. If you configure them correctly, they are amazing, and it is quite fast as well.
That is a very good feature of Splunk Observability Cloud because it helps us and it gives more trust in the alerts.
What needs improvement?
There are not complexities with the installation of Splunk Observability Cloud, but with the configuration of alerts and everything because Splunk has its own language in the background. You need to know Splunk in order to configure everything that you want.
It requires some in-depth knowledge of the product. It should be more plug-and-play, similar to ScienceLogic. ScienceLogic uses whatever it finds. You can use PowerShell, you can use scripts that you make. Splunk is more on the old style. It uses agents, and you have to deploy the agents.
The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards provided by Splunk are okay, but usually, I have to create new dashboards because every user wants to see something else. The out-of-the-box dashboards help to get started faster, but in the end, I will have to redo them.
I would like to see agentless deployment and better integration with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, which is the biggest.
We utilize the ability to enrich data with custom metrics in Splunk Observability Cloud to create tickets in ServiceNow. It is integrated with ServiceNow, but we enrich the tickets by putting the logs in the tickets and things of that nature, so it helps us. However, even that is a mixed approach. From Splunk Observability Cloud, you cannot put the logs directly in the tickets. Instead, it will create a ticket and send you an email with the logs. That integration could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Splunk Observability Cloud for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I cannot speak to lowering the cost of unplanned digital downtime using Splunk Observability Cloud because the client will get the bills. However, it reduces the downtime for systems. It improved visibility when you do changes and you do patching and you do emergency changes, so you can see if they were applied correctly or not, if the servers are still down.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
If it is a new deployment and you have a medium client with about 2,000 users or computers or servers, it will take about six months just to install and configure.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is very good with Splunk.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I worked with ScienceLogic before actually working with Splunk.
How was the initial setup?
There are not complexities with the installation of Splunk Observability Cloud, but with the configuration of alerts and everything because Splunk has its own language in the background. You need to know Splunk in order to configure everything that you want.
What about the implementation team?
I do not spend any time personally because I have a team that does it. I have 27 people in my team.
What was our ROI?
It does provide some return on investment. It is beneficial in terms of finance to use it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I think the pricing for Splunk Observability Cloud is still at a good price. If you are looking at Dynatrace, it is way higher.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I am familiar with the Dynatrace operator but I am not actually working with them. I am just looking into differences and tooling and what will benefit my clients better.
What other advice do I have?
You need to know Splunk in order to configure everything that you want.
The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards provided by Splunk are okay, but usually, I have to create new dashboards because every user wants to see something else. The out-of-the-box dashboards help to get started faster, but in the end, I will have to redo them.
We utilize the ability to enrich data with custom metrics in Splunk Observability Cloud to create tickets in ServiceNow. It is integrated with ServiceNow, but we enrich the tickets by putting the logs in the tickets and things of that nature, so it helps us. However, even that is a mixed approach. From Splunk Observability Cloud, you cannot put the logs directly in the tickets. Instead, it will create a ticket and send you an email with the logs. That integration could be improved.
I would rate this product an 8 overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Synthetic monitoring increases availability and reduces downtime
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Splunk Observability Cloud include retail analytics.
What is most valuable?
The feature I appreciate the most about Splunk Observability Cloud is Synthetic Monitoring. These features have benefited my organization by increasing availability and decreasing downtime, providing assurance that makes you feel good, and ultimately enhancing well-being.
The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards are very effective. At the same time, we also use Splunk Cloud to enhance them. The Splunk Cloud is a better dashboarding experience.
Our teams have utilized the ability to enrich data with custom metrics in Splunk Observability Cloud. We've been doing a lot of that with event management and linking that into IT as well. So we're using that to be able to tie systems together. The integration we have between Observability Cloud and ITSI for event management is where we're using that type of stuff.
What needs improvement?
Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved by having more integration with Splunk Cloud because at the moment they're two separate products. They're making great moves on what they call unified access; tighter integration is always a good thing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Observability Cloud for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would assess the stability and reliability of Splunk Observability Cloud as generally good. We have experienced the odd bug; however, nothing too serious, and Splunk has been quite good in terms of resolving issues; it's just routine stuff and nothing bad.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk Observability Cloud scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization. It just means the more we use it, the more expensive it is, but there are no issues reported.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as fantastic; nobody is better.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
During the deployment, we only had some challenges when we switched on unified access. However, they were just teething problems.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud as we have averted some things that may otherwise have resulted in downtime. We have had it avert potential problems, and the first time it happens is a return on investment. The second time, nobody notices, making measuring business value a challenge.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise other organizations considering this solution to give careful attention to the use cases they have and how they plan to proceed in terms of their roadmap over the next two to three years, as there are alternatives. Having an idea of where you want to go will help you make a better-informed decision.
Additionally, it's good advice to have a customer reference call to learn from someone's experience and avoid pitfalls.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Splunk Observability Cloud overall as a good eight; as soon as it's all integrated neatly together, then it's up in the high numbers.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Deployment optimized and demos delivered faster for the retail sector thanks to customizable dashboards
What is our primary use case?
For the retail sector, we are building a solution for customer stores in order to know how the products are sold.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Splunk Observability Cloud that I prefer most is the easy deployment on the cloud. The benefit of that feature for my organization is to optimize the deploys and implementation and the response to our customers, to quickly make a demo. Splunk Observability Cloud has helped improve our operational performance, especially for our customers.
My experience with the out-of-the-box customizable dashboards provided by Splunk Observability Cloud is that they are effective in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. For the initial point of contact, it helps and works nicely as a star point. Then, you have the basics and use that as a framework to deploy others, so they are very helpful.
What needs improvement?
Splunk Observability Cloud can be improved. In terms of additional features I would want to see in future releases, since Cisco acquired Splunk, more Cisco integration could be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Observability Cloud for the last two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk Observability Cloud scales very well with the growing needs of my organization, as we just need to add a license or data ingestion.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support for Splunk Observability Cloud as good. They respond effectively and in time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting Splunk Observability Cloud, we used other solutions to address similar needs, such as Dynatrace and ElasticSearch.
How was the initial setup?
It is easy to deploy on the cloud.
What was our ROI?
I have not seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud yet, as we are relatively new to it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Splunk Observability Cloud is that it is somewhat expensive, considering I am from Mexico and the market in Mexico is very different from the market in the USA. It is expensive, especially when there are other vendors that offer something similar for much cheaper.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The factors that led me to consider the change to Splunk Observability Cloud include performance and cost, and it depends on the customer. If the customer is a network user or partner with all Cisco solutions, Splunk Observability Cloud fits perfectly.
However, if we have a new customer that doesn't have any Cisco products, it might be better for them to use another solution that is easier to deploy and not as complete as Splunk Observability Cloud, especially if they only need one or two features.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to other organizations considering using Splunk Observability Cloud is that if you want a comprehensive, consistent tool or solution, it is one of the leaders in the market because it integrates with the network side of their organization, including Cisco solutions. Regarding customers who don't come from the Cisco world, it is a good choice, depending on their use. However, for small customers or those that are not large companies, Splunk Observability Cloud may not be the best fit, as it is a comprehensive tool. In Mexico, we observe that customers claim they only need APM or infrastructure monitoring, a very basic requirement, and don't require the entire Splunk portfolio.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Splunk Observability Cloud a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Custom dashboards and detailed searches have improved operational visibility
What is our primary use case?
I use Splunk Observability Cloud for network logging analysis.
What is most valuable?
I prefer the dashboard building and search features of Splunk Observability Cloud the most. Splunk Observability Cloud has helped improve my operational performance.
Previously, we used Elastic for similar purposes as Splunk Observability Cloud, and this has allowed us much more visibility into what we're working on with usable dashboards and metrics, which has been awesome.
What needs improvement?
The only strain point we've encountered with Splunk Observability Cloud is that the search times can be lengthy for some things. We have a large environment, so that's expected. That's the only complaint I've had so far.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Observability Cloud for approximately three months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I experience slow searches occasionally with Splunk Observability Cloud, but there are no outages or anything in that regard, so it is pretty stable and reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk Observability Cloud scales with the growing needs of my organization effectively. As a large organization, we find it impressive that our volume has been handled with only occasional slow searches.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't worked with customer service and technical support directly, however, another engineer on the team has shared positive feedback about their experiences.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting Splunk Observability Cloud, I was using Elastic. Support was a significant factor that led to switching to Splunk Observability Cloud. The previous solution wasn't fully supported by their team, and there weren't adequate integrations or visibility needed for some of our applications. Additionally, it was a legacy installation set up by former employees, so this was an opportunity to start fresh with people who are actively involved.
What was our ROI?
We haven't had Splunk Observability Cloud long enough for me to make substantial comments on its effectiveness in improving digital resilience within my organization.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I wasn't involved in the licensing.
What other advice do I have?
We haven't used the no-sample tracing feature in Splunk Observability Cloud specifically for eliminating blind spots in data collection. We haven't implemented the AI-powered analytics and guidance features provided by Splunk Observability Cloud either.
Our main security architect has done extensive work utilizing the ability to enrich data with custom metrics in Splunk Observability Cloud by setting up specialized dashboards and searches for our various integrated apps, including ISE and Palo firewall logging.
I haven't extensively used the out-of-the-box customizable dashboards provided by Splunk Observability Cloud as we're still using our custom ones. I wasn't involved in the pricing, setup, cost, and licensing. I enjoy using Splunk Observability Cloud, but I'm not familiar with the cost aspects.
Access to Splunk Observability Cloud has been reliable for all users. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Splunk Observability Cloud an eight.
I recommend spending time working on your own dashboards and searches to fit your business needs, as that's where you'll get the most value out of Splunk Observability Cloud.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Correlating logs with traces reduces time to resolution and uncovers issues before reaching operations
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Splunk Observability Cloud is end-to-end tracing of business processes.
How has it helped my organization?
Splunk Observability Cloud has helped improve my operational performance and my company's resilience.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate most about Splunk Observability Cloud is the correlation feature, specifically the ease of correlating logs and issues to those traces to see where within the path of the business function is failing.
One significant way these features benefit my organization is through mean time to resolution. Taking away that first instinct of where we're trying to figure out what's wrong will drop that time significantly, so rather than a few hours, potentially we're looking at a few minutes before we can start resolving an issue.
In terms of operation performance and resilience, I have experienced improvements in mean time to resolution and the ability to detect issues that we weren't detecting ahead of time. I can give a specific case scenario; while we were in a POC situation, it was able to find issues we were having with servers just by random chance. We implemented it and it happened to let us know about an issue before our NOC even knew that it was occurring.
My teams have utilized the ability to enrich data with custom metrics in Splunk Observability Cloud during the implementation process, and we're definitely seeing a huge difference in what data we have, and the teams are extremely excited by the new amount of data we're getting in. I find the out-of-the-box customizable dashboards provided by Splunk Observability Cloud extremely beneficial since they give you a lot of information already, and the ability to customize and do your own is even better.
I ran into a small security incident. Splunk Observability Cloud was able to help us with that along with Splunk's core process or core offering. Between the two, we were able to use it for correlations, which helped with mean time to resolution and getting us back up and running much faster.
What needs improvement?
Splunk Observability Cloud could be improved with better integration with AppDynamics, as we know that's coming, however, it is an issue we've had between the OpenTelemetry and the AppDynamics collector. We saw a complete difference in what data was being brought in, however, we know that issue is being resolved and that's a big one for us.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would assess the stability and reliability of Splunk Observability Cloud as okay. We've been experiencing an issue with the cloud console, and we're working with support to get through that. We're assuming it's just a growing pain at this point. Particularly what we're having is disconnection from the cloud console, where we will be working in it and receive a message saying that we've been disconnected and have to wait for it to come up. It's been painful and seems to be a new issue, and they're trying to figure out what's going on,however, I haven't heard of anybody else having that issue.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk Observability Cloud seems to be scaling quite well with the growing needs of my organization.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate the customer service and technical support for Splunk Observability Cloud as fantastic. On a scale of 1 to 10, the customer service and technical support deserve a 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with Splunk Observability Cloud.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise other organizations considering Splunk Observability Cloud to definitely POC it to see if it's going to work for their situation. It may not be for everybody. That said, definitely give it a chance and see what it can do for you and the kinds of new information it can bring in for you.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Splunk Observability Cloud nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Enables faster issue resolution by pinpointing problem areas through custom metrics and agent data
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Splunk Observability Cloud is application monitoring.
What is most valuable?
The features of Splunk Observability Cloud that I appreciate the most are ops intel and the community support. These features have benefited my organization because they help us find the root cause of any issue quickly and pinpoint the exact location where the issue exists.
We have not yet completely gone into production, so I do not have any metrics or data points to share. To evaluate the effectiveness of Splunk Observability Cloud in improving digital resilience within my organization, we have various client applications, such as the teller application and our online banking applications.
Initially, before Splunk, we had a long time to resolve issues. Now, with Splunk Observability Cloud, we will be able to solve them quickly and know exactly where the issue is. Previously, we needed to go to the war room to find where the issue was. Now, with Splunk Observability Cloud and all its agents and data, we know exactly where the issue is located.
Regarding the no-sample tracing feature, all the data fed by the agents to Splunk Observability Cloud means we do not have to worry about missing any issues during sampling. We have not yet explored the AI-powered analytics feature, but we have partially explored MLTK.
My teams have utilized the ability to enrich data with custom metrics by writing custom agents in Java and Python to collect those custom metrics and feed them into Splunk Observability Cloud. This is particularly useful for applications without direct Splunk agents.
The out-of-the-box customizable dashboards are helpful in showcasing IT performance to business leaders. They provide guidance on requirements we may not have visualized and help us build custom dashboards to include our company-specific metrics. We have not yet expanded usage since we haven't started using it extensively.
What needs improvement?
To improve Splunk Observability Cloud, we need more applications to be included in the observability so that more applications can have agents to monitor them and bring that information to the cloud.
Splunk Observability Cloud has not yet completely improved our operational performance for our company's resilience as we are just starting out, however, it will help us ultimately to reduce incident time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Splunk Observability Cloud for one year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In my experience until now, I have not experienced any stability issues with Splunk Observability Cloud.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Splunk Observability Cloud scales effectively with the growing needs of my organization. As we are a growing company transitioning all our applications to the cloud, and with the increasing number of cloud-native applications, Splunk Observability Cloud will help us achieve digital resiliency and reduce our mean time to resolution.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as excellent, as Splunk has been quite responsive to our service requests, with their team providing good support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting Splunk Observability Cloud, we were using Splunk Enterprise, and we had custom monitoring tools developed in-house.
How was the initial setup?
The installation of Splunk Observability Cloud worked smoothly once we figured out the initial issues. The agents do not consume many resources, and the type of metrics they collect is helpful.
What was our ROI?
Since we have not progressed far into the implementation of Splunk Observability Cloud, I cannot comment on the return on investment at this time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not involved in the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Splunk Observability Cloud eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)