Splunk released the latest version of Splunk Enterprise today, the company’s machine data search and indexing tool. Version 4.3 addresses a couple of trends in the business intelligence industry, a decision that evidently paid off based on some of the early case studies the company cited.  Their theme here is really ease of use, enabling more types of users to benefit from their data analysis capabilities, and coming off their recent Hadoop integration, this version launch is another step in building out Splunk’s big data toolbox.

On the interface front, Splunk added one-push real-time and historical analytics access. Also notable, UI v4.3 features visualization in the form of sparklines and the ability for business users to access dashboards without even the slightest XLM knowledge. Opening up BI to the non-IT end user is something vendors and enterprises are recognizing as an advantage as well, Domo being a very recent example.

“It’s a new class of data,” says Sanjay Mehta, Splunk’s senior director of product marketing.  “If you look at traditional BI solutions, the manage more structured data in the enterprise and…building reports.  That can take months and it’s costly.  We’re not saying there’s no need for that but there’s a need to see data in real time–see what’s happening now.”

Splunk also took on mobile. The company adopted HTML5 so that iOS users will be able to access the platform on-the-go, and simplified certain aspects of security policy management on the admin side.  The shift away from Flash is an important angle for Splunk, as its data visualization tools, graphs and charts are more accessible through HTML5 for mobile browsing.

“Almost everything I do using Splunk’s user interface takes half the time in 4.3. New features mean that I am able to do so much more, and in a more intuitive way,” said Eddie Satterly, senior director of Architecture & Engineering at Expedia, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies. “At Expedia, we have over 2,700 users of Splunk and being able to provide dashboards on iPads means we can get more data to more people when they want it.”

Another portion of the improvements in Splunk Enterprise 4.3 can be credited to the x10 boost to search and the amount of concurrent users the software can handle normally.

Contributors: Maria Deutscher