Big-data analytics company Splunk Inc. announced some major updates to the cloud-based and self-managed versions of its data platforms today.

With the updated Splunk Cloud Platform and general availability of Splunk Enterprise 9.0, customers gain access to greater visibility that enables them to reduce costs, as well as new tools that enable deeper investigative analysis of data. The updates to the platforms were announced during Splunk’s annual user conference, .conf22.

“Splunk 9.0 is  the most significant release we’ve had in a long time,” Chief Product Officer Garth Fort said in a press briefing.

Splunk is one of the most recognizable names in the world of data analytics, its popular software platforms used by enterprises to search, correlate, analyze, monitor and report on data in real time. One of the major changes with today’s releases is greater visibility with expanded data access and optimized storage, which Splunk said will result in more customer choice, control and hence, cost savings.

For instance, Splunk Cloud Platform’s Data Manager feature provides a more scalable onboarding experience across Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure starting today, with support for Google Cloud coming in the summer. Customers will have access to an easier to manage hybrid cloud control plane from where they can view all of the data flowing into Splunk.

Data Manager combines with a new function called Ingest Actions, which helps users get data to the right places, in the correct format, and at the right time. It also provides granular controls that allow administrators to take action on filtering, masking and routing data in motion to help reduce costs.

Cost-effectiveness comes to Splunk Enterprise 9.0 too with the inclusion of SmartStore for Azure, which helps self-managed users of that platform to reduce operating costs by up to 70%, the company claimed.

On the analytics side, Splunk has added new ways to perform deeper analysis of data while optimizing the admin’s experience. For instance, the expanded Federated Search capabilities enhance investigation and search across hybrid cloud environments, Splunk said, while giving users a more unified view of their entire data ecosystem. Through this, Splunk promised to reduce the time it takes for companies to act on their data. Meanwhile, Splunk Enterprise 9.0 users can access a new, fully-managed service within the platform called Splunk Assist to gain deeper insights into their security environments.

Elsewhere Splunk announced a great deal of work it has done on the integration side. It said Splunkbase now provides curated collections of more than 2,500 purpose-built applications and integrations, allowing customers to apply Splunk’s analytics prowess to various new use cases.

Fort said organizations are increasingly demanding full-stack integration across the array of business processes and applications they use, so as to unlock innovation and improve security. “The latest innovations in the Splunk Platform enable customers to address the complexities of multi-cloud and hybrid environments, rapidly identify signals from noise and turn data insights into business outcomes,” he said.

Lastly, Splunk said it’s releasing a preview of the Splunk Cloud Developer Edition for programmers to create, build and test applications that integrate with the Splunk platforms.

International Data Corp. analyst Archana Venkatraman welcomed the updates to Splunk’s platforms. He said the growing complexity of information technology infrastructure stacks and attack surfaces means that traditional approaches to operational resilience and security no longer suffice.

“Organizations need end-to-end visibility in real-time combined with quick, actionable insights to ensure their digital environments are consistent, performant and resilient,” Venkatraman said. “Without end-to-end visibility, flexibility and extensibility, organizations’ modern CloudOps strategies can’t be executed.”

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: Splunk