Splunk is a software based platform which is used to hunt, scrutinize and envisage the data generated by machine from several web based sources including applications, electronic gadgets, sensors and websites etc. in real time making up for the IT framework and business oriented organization. Fig. 1 below shows the process behind Splunk.

Fig. 1. Extraction of machine generated data in real time [1]

Splunk’s major point of sale is its “real time machine generated data processing”. It is because as it has been observed that storage devices are becoming better with the passage of time, and processors are made efficient after each passing day, but there is no improvement in data movement. Through Splunk, this practice has improved, otherwise it could cause the blockage of many processes in several organizations.

With Splunk software assistance, probing through a specific data in a cluster of intricate data has become much more easy. Figuring out the currently running configuration in log files has always been a challenging task. To make it easier, Splunk software has a tool that provides assistance to the user by sensing and perceiving the issues behind configuration files and comprehend the configurations currently being operated [2].

Table of Content +

Splunk Architecture

There are three main phases in Splunk.

Input Phase
Storage Phase
Searching Phase

Fig. 2. Three different stages of Splunk Processing [3]

Data Input Phase

In this phase, Splunk gathers the raw data from available website sources and splits it into thousands of blocks and marks each of the block with a separate identity or “metadata keys”. This keys have all the information regarding data including hostname, source of collection, and its data type. These keys have the feature of including the values for internal use, for instance, “data stream character encoding”, and values that regulates the data processing throughout the indexing stage. These indexes are those where events are stored and saved.

Data Storage Phase

This phase is comprised of two steps, i.e., Parsing and Indexing.

In Parsing step, Splunk observes, inspects, analyzes and transmutes the data in order to extract the appropriate information. This is also known as “event processing”. Throughout this process, Splunk splits the data into several events. Parsing has four sub-phases:

Splitting the data into individual event.
Recognizing, Parsing and locating time stamps.
Interpreting each event with metadata that is derived from the source keys.
Converting event and metadata as per transformation rules.

In indexing step, parsed events are written on the disk index by Splunk. Both compressed originally obtained data and corresponding index files are written. Data access become easy through data indexing.

Data Searching Phase

In this phase, user’s accesses, opinions, and indexed data usages are controlled. Comprising search function tool, Splunk stores the knowledge object that is created by user, including events, reports, dashboards, alert alarms, and field abstraction. Search processes are also managed by search function.

Splunk Components

Splunk has three main components that fall under the above mentioned three phases of Splunk.

Splunk Forwarder: It is used for forwarding the extracted data.
Splunk Indexer: It is used for data Parsing and Indexing.
Splunk Head: It is sort of GUI which is used for search, scrutinizing, and reporting the data.

In Fig. 3 below, an architecture of end-to-end Splunk working has been illustrated where forwarders are sending data to the indexers. Indexers directs the data to the Search Heads in order to search, analyze, visualize and build knowledge object for “Operational Intelligence”.

Fig. 3. Splunk Architecture [3]

How Splunk Architecture Works?

A step by step explanation of Splunk working is as follows:

Forwarder tracks the data, creates the copy or “metadata key” of the extracted raw data and executes the load balancing (LB) on that specific data before sending it to the indexer.
Cloning creates the replicated copies of the data source while LB is executed in case if one process damages, the copied data can be used in replacement in second process that is hosting the indexer.
When data is acquired from the forwarder, it is then directed towards the indexer component where it is split into several “logical data stores” and in each data store it is possible to place the authorities that can guide the user’s view and right of use.
While the data being inside the indexer, user can search for that data and allocates the searches to several other search acquaintances. In the end all the obtained results are merged which are then be sent to Search Head.
User can carry out some processes, such as:

Scheduling search acquaintances
Making alerts

It is also possible for users to make use of “knowledge object” in order to strengthen the current unformatted data.
It is possible that both the “Search Heads” and “Knowledge objects” can be regained from Splunk software CLI that happens over API connection.

In order to understand how Splunk works, an example from healthcare sector has been elaborated for real time data collection of a patient by data analytics using Splunk.

Data analytics collects the health care information of patient located in remote areas by making use of IoT devices (sensors). Splunk processes this collected data and reports any kind of irregular anomalous activity regarding patient health to the doctor and patient via “patient interface”. Splunk assists them in achieving the following information.

Record and report health situation of patient in real time.
Examine deeper into health record of a patient and evaluate patterns.
Give an alarming signal to the doctor and patient when patient’s health degrades.

Fig. 4 below shows the pictorial view of Splunk’s working.

Fig. 4. Pictorial Illustration of how Splunk works [1]

Advantages of Splunk

Splunk has many advantages if implemented, some of them are listed below [15].

Splunk generates analytical reports by adding interactive graphs, charts and tables and shares all of these with the users considering it to be the productive data.
Splunk can easily be implanted and is accessible.
Splunk has a feature of automatically finding the productive information from the bunch of data in order to ease the user from a strenuous search activity.
Splunk saves the tags for user that are considered to be the significant information making user’s system smarter and efficient in working.
It evaluates the collected logs obtained from a large service cluster.
It catches real-time logs quickly with much faster speed and saves time.
It creates reports and alert alarms for the most preferred search.
Splunk provides improved GUI along with real-time visibility in dashboard through various formats
Splunk Enterprise offers quick results within no time to troubleshoot and solve the issues
Splunk monitors, produces reports and analyzes the tools by providing detailed insights
It does not need other reliant on services such as database
Splunk requires least resources
It is easy to maintain and install its set up.
Splunk accepts every kind of data type that also includes “.csv”, “JSON log formats” etc.
It observes several other company’s infrastructure
Splunk Enterprises uploads and indexes the data log from local PC to Splunk directory directly.

Disadvantages of Splunk

Along with the merits of implementing Splunk, it has some demerits too, that are listed below.

It is costly for managing large data volumes.
Optimizing searches for speech is practically impossible to implement.
Splunk compromises on reliability, although its Dashboards are convenient to use but not reliable enough.
After Splunk, many other innovative open source options have been attempted to replace it by IT sector.

Splunk Forwarders

Forwarder is an element in Splunk that is used for logs collection. Collecting logs from a distant machine can be accomplished by making use of Splunk’s forwarders that are free to work from main Splunk instance. A huge amount of forwarders can be installed in numerous machines that forwards collected log to indexer for data processing and storage. In addition to forwarding the data, Splunk forwarders can also do the real time data analysis. Data collection is possible at the same time from several other machines in real time. There are three kinds of forwarders in Splunk.

Universal forwarder: that is comprised of only essential components for forwarding the data.
Heavy forwarder: a “full Splunk enterprise instance” which not only indexes, explores, and alters the data but also forwards it too.
Light forwarder: it is also a “full Splunk enterprise instance” having additional features inactivated to gain the possible small resource footprint. Universal forwarder surpasses this light forwarder in lieu of having all the finest tools for transferring data to the indexers.

The detailed explanation of each of Splunk Forwarder is discussed below [4].

Universal Forwarder

The primary purpose of “universal forwarder” is to send the data forward. This forwarder cannot be used for indexing or data searching purpose like other full Splunk instance. In order to gain the best performance and lighter footprint, universal forwarder has various restrictions that includes:

It cannot explore, index or create alert alarms with data.
It cannot parse the data, but can be used to direct the data to various other Splunk indexers built on the data contents.
It does not have “bundled version of Python” as possessed by other full Splunk instances.

Universal forwarder receives the data from diverse input range and forwards it to the “Splunk deployment” for indexing and exploration purposes. It has the feature of forwarding the data from one forwarder to the other forwarder as a transitional step before transmitting the data to the indexer.

Universal forwarder can be downloaded separately other than the whole Splunk software. It is impossible to enable this forwarder from “full Splunk enterprise instance”.

Universal forwarder is preferably used for forwarding the data but sometimes, there is a need to analyze and alter the data before sending or forwarding it. For this purpose, heavy and light both forwarders are used that are “full Splunk enterprise instances” having certain characteristics disabled. Both of these forwarders possess different capabilities with corresponding size of their respective “resource footprints”.

Heavy Forwarder

Heavy forwarder (or also known as “regular forwarder”) comprised of a small in size footprint than the indexer but holds most of the capability apart from that it does not execute the “distributed searches”. Its footprint size can be reduced by disabling its default functionality that includes, for instance “Splunk web”, if necessary. This forwarder before forwarding the data, completely analyzes, breakdowns and parses it and directs it on a route built on a criterion for instance, event type or event source. To locally index the data along with forwarding it to the other Splunk instance is the significant feature of heavy forwarder.

Light Forwarder

Like heavy forwarder, light forwarder also possesses smaller footprint but with more restricted functionalities. It sends and forwards only the unparsed data and because of this reason, universal forwarder surpasses it. Although light forwarder is now decried but in order to meet the legacy needs it is still available in “Splunk instances”.

On installing the universal forwarder, user has the option to migrate checkpoint setting from any light forwarder even by existing on a same host.

Types of Forwarder Data

Forwarders have the ability to transfer three kinds of data [4].

Raw
Unparsed
Parsed

The type of data that is sent through forwarder solely depends on the type of forwarder along with the configuration being done. Universal and light forwarders have the ability to send unparsed and original data, while heavy forwarder can send both original and parsed data.

Raw Data

In this data type, original and unaltered data is sent by forwarder over TCP stream. Here, data is not converted to the “Splunk communication format”. Forwarder just gathers the data and forwards it to the indexer. This is beneficial for sending data to “non-Splunk system”.

Unparsed Data

With this data, a marginal processing is being conducted through Universal forwarder. Here, data stream is not analyzed but is tagged with metadata key in order to identify the data source, its type and the host. Data is split into numerous blocks and time stamping on the stream (that the index on receiving end can use when event itself has no timestamp apparently) is implemented. Each individual events are not identified, examined and tagged by universal forwarders except only when user has to configure the event in order to parse the files by structured data for instance “comma-separated value files”.

Parsed Data

With this data, heavy forwarder is applied to parse the data into single events which are then tagged and forwarded to Splunk indexer. It is also used for scrutinizing and examining the events. On parsing the data, forwarder performs the conditional routing centered on event data for instance, field values.

Both of parsed and unparsed data formats are considered to be “cooked data” for differentiating then from the original (raw) data. Cooked data is sent by forwarders by default where unparsed data is sent by universal forwarders and parsed data is sent by heavy forwarders.

Splunk Installation

Splunk Enterprise can be installed on both Windows and Linux operating system (OS). Installation on each OS is elaborated step by step below.

Installation on Windows OS

Splunk is installed on Windows using “Graphical User Interface (GUI)” based installer and using command line. Here, GUI based Splunk installation has been described in detail. Before Splunk installation, there are some key points which must be considered first.

Before Splunk installation, make sure to select the user account on window OS where Splunk should run to address the user’s particular requirements.
Splunk requires high disk throughput for installation. Software with device driver can slow down the installation and running process of the system including antivirus software. Hence, such softwares must be configured to evade “on-access scanning of Splunk software installation directories” and procedures before installing Splunk.

Consider the following steps in order to install the Splunk software using GUI on Windows OS [5].

At first, download the Splunk installer from Splunk download page.
Double click on downloaded “splunk.msi” file. Installer will run and show the “Splunk enterprise installer” panel.

Check the “Check this box to accept the License Agreement”. It will start the “Customize installation”, then click on “Next” button.
License agreement can be viewed by clicking on “View License Agreement”, but it’s optional not mandatory for installation purpose.
If user wants change the default installation settings, then before clicking “Next”, click on the “Customize Options” and proceed with the instructions.
On selecting the option of “customize installation”, it displays the “install Splunk Enterprise to” panel.

By default, Splunk is installed in c:\programfiles\Splunk, on system drive. Splunk runs two Window services i.e., “splunkd” and “splunkweb”. “splunkd” handles all Splunk operations while “splunkweb” is installed to run in legacy mode. These services are installed and run according to the specified user account on “Choose the user Splunk Enterprise should run as” panel. Splunk has an option to run as local system user.

On installing Splunk, user must define the specific domain name in “domain\username” format.

Click “change” in order to specify the different installation directory for Splunk, otherwise click “Next” accepting the default value. The installer shows “Choose the user Splunk Enterprise should run as” panel.
Click on the user type and proceed by clicking “Next”.

On selecting “local system” user, create credentials for “Splunk administrator user” by entering particular such as username and password meeting the least possible eligibility requirements and click “Next”.

In the next step, installer will display the panel for installation summary. Check the “create start menu shortcut” and click on “install” button to proceed the installation process.
The installer will run to install the Splunk Enterprise software and will display the “installation complete” panel. Check box “Launch browser with Splunk Enterprise” (optional).
Click on “Finish”. The installation is complete now, “Splunk Enterprise” will start and launch in supported browser.

Installation on Linux OS

Splunk is installed on Linux using “RPM or DEB packages or a tar file” based installer, but it is completely dependent on Linux version that user’s host is running. Here, Splunk installation has been described in detail using all of the installers [7].

Installation using TAR file

Spread the tar file to a suitable directory by making use of “tar” command as:

“Tae xvzf splunk_package_name.tgz”

By using Tar file, the default directory for Splunk installation is “splunk” in current occupied directory. To install it into “/opt/splunk”, use the following command:

“Tae xvzf splunk_package_name.tgz –c /opt”

Installation using RPM

RPM based packages are used for various Linux versions such as Red Hat, CentOS etc. For installation, follow the below mentioned steps:

It is necessary to confirm at first that the RPM package which user wants to install is locally available on target host.
Validate that Splunk user account which will run Splunk services is able to read and have the right to access each rpm file.
If necessarily needed, permission on file can be changed using the following command:

“chmod 644 splunk_package_name.rpm”

Use the below mentioned command so as to install the Splunk software RPM in default directory i.e., “/opt/splunk”.

“rpm –I splunk_package_name.rpm”

To make a set-up of Splunk into different directory, use the flag “–prefix”. It is an optional step not the mandatory one. Changing the directory can be done using the following command:

“rpm –i –prefix = /opt/new_directory splunk_package_name.rpm”

Already existing Splunk Enterprise installation can be replaced by RPM file using the following command.

“rpm –i –replacepkgs –prefix = /splunkdirectory/ splunk_package_name.rpm”

Installation using Debian .DEB file

Before installing Splunk using .DEB file, there are some perquisites for that which are required to be fulfilled at first.

Debian package can install the Splunk software only in default location, i.e.., “/opt/splunk”.
The location should be a regular directory, not a symbolic link.
User must have the right to access the root user or atleast should have pseudo permission for installing package.
The .DEB package does not produce an environment variable so as to access “Splunk Enterprise installation directory”. User is required to set these variables on its own.

To install Splunk using .DEB file, go step by step with the following procedure:

Run “dpkg” installer with “Splunk Enterprise Debian package name as argument”.

“dpkg –i splunk_package_name.deb”

Installation status can be seen using the following .deb command:

“dpkg –status splunk”

Windows and Linux Splunk Certifications

Splunk Enterprise platform offers frameworks that avoid the unauthorized access to this Splunk platform as well as the data that is stored in this platform. Following frameworks are used for Splunk platform security [9]:

“Role based access control (RBAC)”
Security of all file configurations, data breakdown /parsing points, data storage, inside and outside communication by means of several certificates and encryption patterns.
Complication in certification details on logging in the account.

Splunk cloud platform secure and encrypts the user’s account configurations and data parsing points by means of up to date and state of the art “Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)” technology. Hence, user can easily secure its access to the apps and credential data by making use of RBAC so as to restrict the viewers and allow only the permitted viewers. On implementation of security certifications and encryption for Splunk web and communication, configuration files and data in Splunk software can be secured.

Splunk SSL Certification

SSL (“secure socket layer”) is a technology that keeps the internet connection safe and secures the sensitive information and data that is transferred among two communicating systems. SSL prevents attackers from modifying and altering any kind of information being sent as well as the personal credential details. Communicating systems can be server and client (such as shopping sites and browser) or server and server (such as application with private recognizable data or with payroll data) [10].

By using SSL, transfer of data from user to site and vice versa remains secured and impossible to read. Encryption algorithms are taken into consideration by SSL for scrambling data while transferring and also avoiding hackers to read it while sending over the connection. The transferred data can include any kind of information such as credit card number, financial info or personal addresses and names etc. SSL is mainly used to secure these account card numbers and transactions logins. With the recent advancement in this technology, it is now becoming a norm to use it for securing social media site browsing.

SSL certificates bind together:

Domain name, host and server name
Organizational identity and location

There are two more updated versions of SSL which are mentioned below.

HTTPS (“Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure”) seems in URL if the website is secured by SSL certificate. All of the information regarding issuing authority and organization name of website owner are easily available on the lock symbol in browser bar and can be obtained by just one click.
TLS (“Transport Layer Security”) is also the updated and more secure version of SSL.

OpenSSL command line on Windows and Linux

To implement the OpenSSL command line tasks, user needs the administrator’s permission. If user is working on virtual or remote machine, an extra step is taken to assure that the user has the permission to perform the specific tasks.

On windows platform, command line should be opened as an administrator. For this purpose, go to the start menu in window OS, right click the “.exe application” and choose “run as administrator”.
On Linux platform, pseudo code is required to log in as the root administrator.

Splunk software uses a version of “OpenSSL” at “$SPLUNK_HOME/splunk/lib”. It supports OpenSSL with FIPS 140-2 being enabled. If OpenSSL is used for certificate configurations, it is recommended to use the version integrated with the Splunk Enterprise so as to avoid the compatibility issues. To check if the version is compatible with Splunk or not, set the environment with the version in “SPLUNK_HOME/splunk/lib” or “$SPLUNK_HOME\splunk\bin” in Window OS [11].

Linux users can use the following lib path:

“export LD_LIBRARY_PATH = $SPLUNK_HOME/splunk/lib”

Windows user can use the following path (using command prompt):

“set PATH = %PATH%; %SPLUNK_HOME%\bin”

Splunk software is configured to use, a group of default certificates. These default certificates dismay spontaneous hackers and attackers but still can leave the software vulnerable to the attacks, as the original certificate is similar in each of the “Splunk download” and everyone using the similar root certificate can authenticate and validate.

Ways to Secure Splunk Enterprise

Splunk user can apply encryption or authentication by making use of its own certificates for the following:

Communication among browser and Splunk web
Communication through forwarders to indexers
Communication among Slunk instances upon administration port

Communication among browser and Splunk web

The communication between browser and Splunk data is mostly comprised of exploration requests (searching) and the returned data.

HTTPS based data encryption is turned on by means of Splunk Web, or by altering the “configuration files”. It must be kept in mind that security encryption by using default certificate defends contrary to “casual listening” but it is not secured completely.

For better security, default certificates must be replaced with the signed certificates from trusted CA. It is recommended to use CA signed certificates rather than own self signed certificate because it is considered less secure and untrusted by user’s browser.

Communication through forwarders to indexers

The data transferred from forwarders to the indexers is used by indexers in order to do search and report. There are some chances that data may or may not be readable or sensitive, but it completely depends upon the company, data type, its format and nature of data to transfer as well as the Splunk configuration. Securing sensitive information and raw data assists in avoiding middle man and the hacker attacks.

SSL certification can be turned on by means of default certifications so as to offer encryption and compression. Nevertheless, secure authentication and validation cannot be provided through the communication by means of default certification because certificate password is provided with every Splunk installation software. Default certifications expires within three years after initial startup and this is the point where communication among forwarder to indexer may fail.

Communication among Slunk instances upon administration port

Communication among Splunk instances upon other administration ports is also one of the ways of SSL communication and it occurs mostly in distributed environment. Configuration data transfer form server to clients can be considered as an example for this case. This kind of SSL encryption is enabled by default. This security method is strongly recommended and it is sufficient for most of the configurations.

Turning Encryption on with Splunk Web

Almost all of the encryptions turn on in Splunk Web by means of default certification during the installation process, but every installation has the same default certificate, from here, the chances of system vulnerability becomes high. It becomes more easy for hackers to attack the system software and steal the sensitive data. If security of the system is the priority, default certification must be altered and system authentication must be configured for better security. For this purpose, HTTPS can be enabled in Splunk web by following the steps mentioned below [12].

In Splunk web, go to “setting” select “systems” and click on “server settings” and again click on “General settings”.
Below “Splunk web” button, choose the “yes” option for “Enable SSL (HTTPS) in Splunk Web”. By default, Splunk set up indicates default certificates when security encryption is turned on, therefore no further action is required.
Restart the Splunk Web.
User should prepend “https://” to website URL for accessing the Splunk Web.

Remove Password on Splunk Web

For creating a private key for Splunk Web, a new private key must be generated and password should be removed. It is recommended to generate the new private key particularly for communication among browser and Splunk Web encryption such that user don’t have to remove the password from the keys and these can be used elsewhere.

Create a new private key
When message pop-up, make a password.
Remove the password from the private keys.

For Linux, use the following command:

“$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk cmd openssl rsa –in mySplunkWebPrivateKey.key –out mySplunkWebPrivateKey.key”

For Windows, use the following command:

“$SPLUNK_HOME\bin\splunk cmd openssl rsa –in mySplunkWebPrivateKey.key –out mySplunkWebPrivateKey.key”.

In order to make sure that password has been removed, use the following command:

In Linux:

“$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk cmd opessl rsa –in mySplunkWebPrivateKey.key -text”

In Windows:

“$SPLUNK_HOME\bin\splunk cmd opessl rsa –in mySplunkWebPrivateKey.key -text”

User must be able to read the certificate contents without providing password.

Splunk Careers

Splunk Enterprise was designed as a search engine for searching log files that are stored in the system. The key responsibility for Splunk software is to index and process the large amount of data and information. It is a common attribute that Splunk is not easy to execute and deploy by if implemented once, it delivers its users a wide range of users. Splunk improvises and enhances the searches about the fields, measurable actions and transactions by adding more and more useful information. In addition to that it uses cookies for recognizing the search domain based on the previous searches with better flexibility. Moreover, scheduling can also be taken place to send alert alarm from system if any alarming situation occurs.

Splunk is a technology based software that delivers an enhanced technique to search and index the log files in a system. It also has the feature to monitor, visualize and observe the huge amount of system data in real-time. It was first introduced and designed by Rob Das, Michael Baum, and Erik Swan in 2003-04 [14].

Training Courses for Building Career in Splunk

Splunk offers free courses, learning paths to Splunk users and administrators, to cloud platform, to app developers, to security administrators, and also to end users. The certification tracks of these courses with detailed description is available in a link: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/training.html. A vast pool of these courses is available on YouTube as well for learning purpose. These training courses assist not only the beginners but also provide help to the experienced ones too in order to improve and enhance their abilities to work in Splunk environment. In the given link, all courses along with videos of Splunk courses are present for both new users and professionals. All types of courses such as paid, free, certified can be opted from this platform. Splunk platform is used in DevOps domain for being integrated with its various tools depicting several time charts and graphical representations documents and reports for visualizing the huge data. It is also taken as “Splunk Training and Splunk Certification”.

Splunk Career Path

A career in Splunk has some particular job roles such as system engineer, Splunk architect, administrator, software developer, web application developer, programming analyst, data analyst, Manger for technical services, Security Engineer and analyst. Some other job roles can also be generated depending upon the company’s requirement. These job roles include, DevOps, engineer and consultants etc.

The most competitive and collaborative job of Splunk is the engineer job which is balanced neither much strained nor very tranquil. Splunk career is also flourishing in other technology domains and industry sectors such finance, insurance, IT, trade, retail, technical services and manufacturing. A lot of enterprises, either small, middle or large, universities, government sectors and other services providers are deploying Splunk in their organizations in many countries. These sectors and companies are using Splunk for cybersecurity purposes, customer handling and understanding, fraud prevention, enhancing service performance, all of this by decreasing the overall cost. Splunk Enterprise software has been used worldwide in global companies like Facebook, IBM, Adobe, HP and sales Force etc.

Job Applications

A career in Splunk hold a range of job opportunities in global market in diverse sectors. These job opportunities and openings are present in several companies mainly in Information technology (IT) field. Companies includes IBM, Accenture, Cap Gemini, and other giant organizations. The most available job places are for software engineer, Technical architect, Splunk admin, Splunk app developer, Splunk security analyst and engineers etc. In order to apply for these job posts, user needs to go to career page of each site. From here, all the procedures to apply for the related job is mentioned, hence, individual can apply to these job posts.

Splunk Competitors

Splunk is considered as the top priority in Security Information (SE/IT) industry and in Event Management for new customers. Splunk Enterprises being at the top on the list has some competitors too that are somehow considered to be better alternative for some other IT based sectors. List with the detailed description of these companies have been mentioned below [16].

Splunk Competitors	Company Description
DynaTrace	Dynatrace has innovated the way of monitoring and observing the digital ecosystems. It provides one solution to all the digitization as “AI-powered, full stack and completely automated”, not just the data that is built upon deep insight for every user, every transaction, across every application. Globally leading brands put their trust on Dynatrace for optimizing customer experiences, revolutionizing faster and modernizing IT operations with utter confidence. Its rating is 4.5/5.
DataDog	Datadog provides monitoring services in the field/domain of IT, and DevOps teams that develop and run applications at scale, and desire to turn the huge data created by their apps, tools and services into actionable deep insight. Its rating is 4.2/5.
AppDynamics	It is an “application performance management solution” that keenly observes each code line so as to assist in troubleshooting and solving application problems, by enhancing user experiences, and observing performance of application. Its rating is 4.2/5.
Logz.io	Logz.io is a “cloud observability platform” for enabling engineers to make use of the best open-source monitoring gears in market irrespective of the complexity and complications while operating and handling them at scale. Moreover, Logz.io also offers three products: “Log Management” created on ELK, “Infrastructure Monitoring” based on Grafana “ELK-based Cloud SIEM” These are provided as “fully managed”, “developer-centric cloud services” that are built to assist engineers to monitor, resolve and secure the disseminated cloud based assignments more efficiently. Its rating is 4.6/5.
Microsoft System Center	It provides assistance to customers in realizing the advantages of the “Microsoft Cloud Platform” by bringing integrated management. Experience fast time-to-value with out-of-the-box monitoring, provisioning, configuration, automation, protection and self-service. Its rating is 4.1/5.
Pager Duty	Pager Duty is an “end-to-end incident management and response platform” that is used to provide insights to the developers, IT operations, and business stakeholders in order to solve and avoid “business-impacting incidents” very quickly. It makes it easy to observe business infrastructure, or setting up on-call schedules, and establishing growth policies, also creating automated workflows, and alerting right people at right time. Its rating is 4.5/5.
Team Viewer	It is “easy-to-use remote support and access software” that lets the user to securely and safely link and monitor “desktop-to-desktop”, “desktop-to-mobile”, “mobile-to-mobile”, and to unattended devices such as servers and IoT devices from anywhere. Its rating is 4.5/5.
Nice-in-Contact	This platform helps call centers around the globe for creating profitable and beneficial customer experiences via its portfolio of “cloud-based call center software solutions”. Its rating is 4.2/5.
Logic Monitor	Logic Monitor is a “SaaS-based, automated performance monitoring platform” which offers responsive “IT Operation teams” having the characteristics of visibility and actionable metrics that are needed to ensure the accessibility of services and apps running on complicated and scattered infrastructure. Its rating is 4.5/5.
Solar Winds Server & Application Monitor	This platform delivers “deep observation into health”, “accessibility and performance of over 200 enterprise applications” and “multi-vendor servers” out of the box. It actively monitors and alerts the system performance problems and make it simpler to troubleshoot through a single dashboard. Its rating is 4.3/5.
The Service Now	This platform provides a “System of Action” to the organizations. By means of single data model, it simplifies and provide easiness to generate “contextual workflows” and computerize business processes. “Intelligent Automation Engine” of this platform associates machine learning (ML) with programmed actions for dramatically minimizing costs and speed up the time‑to‑resolution. Its rating is 3.9/5.
Gray Log	It is an “open source, centralized log management” alternative to Splunk. It captures, stores, and facilitates real-time search and exploration against terabytes of machine data from any element in IT infrastructure. Its rating is 4.4/5.
Go-To-Assist (Rescue Assist)	Go-To-Assist is has become “Rescue Assist” now. It offers “market-leading remote support” and “ITIL-based service desk management” for enhancing and improving IT operations and minimizing the cost. The Significant innovative features of this platform are comprised of “lightning-fast connection time”, “right fit support” such as chat, distant view, and file transfer, “in-channel support (integrations with apps like Slack)”, and “mobile device support + camera share”. Its rating is 4.3/5.
New Relic APM	New Relic delivers “SaaS Application Performance Management for Ruby, PHP, .Net, Java and Python Apps”. In addition to that, it also offers data statistics for acquiring better corporate results, keenly observing crashes, and following the drop offs in user flows. Its rating is 4.3/5.
PRTG Network Monitor	PRTG is a “network management software solution” which monitors system network by means of implementing a wide range of tools and technologies to assure and guarantee the accessibility of system network components/elements by evaluating traffic and its usage. It rating is 4.6/5.
Microsoft Azure	Microsoft Azure is a “cloud computing service” provided by Microsoft. By implementing Azure, industries and organizations become capable of building, managing, and deploying applications on “Microsoft’s global networking” by means of customizable tools and frameworks. Its rating is 4.2/5.
Zabbix	It is an “open-source network performance monitoring software” that provides innovative templates from IT based “community developers”. The Zabbix Platform is composed of “network health measurements” that includes “memory utilization”, “packet loss rate”, and “predictive trends in bandwidth usage and downtimes”. These dimensions and quantities are easy to adjust by using custom edges for “network health and security issue alerts”.