Data Backup Digest

Splunk is a company that was founded in 2003. They are a cloud analytics firm, providing a range of solutions for firms handling big data. These products include Splunk Enterprise, Cloud and Hunk. Their software platform was offered through the cloud, using Amazon Web Services, in October 2013. The company has over 7400 customers, with a customer base that includes the likes of Domino’s Pizza, Home Depot and Symantec.

Splunk Cloud offers users real-time monitoring of their data. This includes alerting about anomalies, role-based accessed controls, report acceleration, knowledge mapping and pattern matching. The service offers virtually unlimited scalability and, according to the website, “the highest levels of security” through running in a Virtual Private Cloud.

Access to Splunk Cloud comes with the ability to use over 500 Splunk Apps, including Enterprise Security, App for VMWare and Apps for AWS. On top of this, users have access to the available APIs and SDKs for ultimate full platform support.

In early August, Splunk announced that they were cutting their prices by 33 percent and would be guaranteeing 100 percent uptime for their customers.

The senior vice president of products for Splunk, Guido Schroeder, noted that the changes have come because businesses cannot afford to have downtime on their platforms that monitor their applications, infrastructure and services. To offer one hundred percent uptime is a bold claim and one that will appeal to many enterprises.

One such enterprise it appeals to is MindTouch. Their CEO, Aaron Fulkerson, told CIO Today that the uptime guarantee was one of the main reasons that he decided to choose Splunk. Their success with customers “hinges on uptime, and this new guarantee enables us to meet their expectations. It’s non-negotiable,” he said.

“One hundred percent is a pain point when you're talking about the cloud in general,” said Dennis Callaghan, a senior analyst at 451 Research. “They're kind of removing a barrier to adoption.”

Splunk reported late in August that it took $101.5 million of revenue in their second quarter, an improvement of 52% on the previous year. The net earnings minus special items were reported at one cent per share. The earnings put silence to doubters who believed that the company would be reporting a much lower taking. Splunk now expects their full year revenue to fall within the $423 million to $428 million range.

“With more than 70% of license bookings coming from existing customers, Splunk has demonstrated it can repeatedly and successfully sell into its installed base; we see consciously growing the aggregate customer footprint as a very strategic approach,” said Brent Till, a UBS analyst.

The increase in takings is also no doubt down to Splunk’s growing customer list, boasting large clients like the State of Vermont, France’s postal system and Australia’s State Revenue Office Victoria. The news sent the company’s stock surging.

Splunk’s cloud offering is available to those within the United States and Canada, with prices starting at $675 per month for daily indexing of 5GB of data.

For more information about the services that Splunk offer, including further pricing details and how to buy, please visit their official website. The website also offers the ability to test out Splunk’s cloud services through a free online sandbox.