Interview: Mark Brown – VP Solutions Engineering at Splunk

This week, I had the pleasure of running a Fireside Chat with Mark Brown, who leads the engineering team at Splunk. The chat was streamed live on Linked In and YouTube as part of Cisilion’s monthly technology chat show which has been running for more than three years.

This month, we took to the virtual stage to discuss the acquisition of Splunk by Cisco, the history and innovation that Splunk brings across security and data analytics and observability, and some of the huge success stories and customers of Splunk since the company’s founding in 2003.

In this month’s show, we delved into Splunk’s history and capabilities, its evolution over the last 20 years, and its role as a data analytics platform. We talked about Splunk’s diverse customer base, including huge “high street” brands like Siemens and Gatwick Airport, where we discussed how Splunk’s data analytics is helping to enhance operational efficiency and security at the airport and how by processing local traffic and weather data along with real time people traffic in the airport, they help to ensure that LGW meet their people flow SLAs of getting people from check-in and through security.

Finally we talked about why Cisco have acquired Splunk, the market opportuntiy it creates and how partners like Cisilion will be able to leverage this aquisition into the Cisco portfolio over time. Mark talks about this being a strategic move to integrate Splunk’s data analytics with Cisco’s network and security solutions, offering a comprehensive approach to observability and security and giving them a real competitive edge whilst, increasing their market share and making the solutions simpler for their customers.

Using the power of AI, I have used Microsoft Copilot to breakdown the key sections of the video and help you to navigate to areas you think might be useful to you.

(I have a video on how to do this which you can access -> here -<

Cisilion and Splunk Fireside Chat – Key Coversations

• [00:01:18] Introduction of Mark Brown from Splunk
  • Leads the UK solution engineering team
  • Discusses Splunk’s recent acquisition by Cisco
  • Highlights the value Splunk brings to businesses
• [00:03:00] Explanation of what Splunk is
  • Describes Splunk as a platform for searching logs in data centers
  • Evolved into a leader in security and observability
  • Known as the “Google for the data center”
• [00:18:09] Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk
  • Seen as a natural fit with little overlap in technology offerings
  • Expected to enhance both Cisco’s and Splunk’s product portfolios
  • Acquisition aligns with Cisco’s strategy to expand software offerings
• [00:08:14] Reference customers of Splunk
  • Splunk’s reference customers span 110 countries and includes major brands across various industries
  • Talking through examples including Siemens, Singapore Airlines, and Gatwick Airport
  • Talking about wider use cases that demonstrate Splunk’s adaptability and impact
• [00:14:22] Splunk’s competition in the market
  • How and where Splunk competes with and partners with various tech companies such as Data Dog and Relic
  • How Microsoft Sentinel have also become a leader in the SIEM space in just two years and how Microsoft and Splunk are working together to deliver Splunk Solutions to customers in Azure.
  • How Splunk have been leaders for more than 10 years.
• [00:17:46] Cisilion’s perspective on the acquisition
  • How Cisilion are excited about the integration and potential for new market opportunities and the alignment between Cisco and Microsoft, Cisilion’s two strategic partners.
  • How we see the acquisition as a way to complete the technology journey for clients bringing together multiple technnologies and creating a single pane of glass for security logs and observability.
  • Our forward looking view on the game-changing advancements in observability and security this aquisition could bring to Cisco.
• 00:25:23] The chat continues around use cases, market trends and the future of security and observability

Welcome your views on the video and the discussion as always.