The Dollars and Sense of Data Strategy: Managing Data, Agility and Value

Data. Is. Power. Whether you’re running a business, a non-profit, or a government agency, data is the lifeblood that helps IT and security leaders achieve their goals. That said, not all data is of equal value, and companies must manage it carefully. One of the most common mistakes leaders make is not investing in a data strategy that prioritizes the most valuable data enabled by the right tools.

Defining a strategy is challenging for IT and security leaders buried under the explosion of data and suffering from blindspots, missed threats, and overlooked insights. Their SecOps teams labor to cut through the noise and identify real threats, and their ITOps and Engineering teams struggle to detect incidents proactively. In addition, regulatory and compliance requirements dictate how customers manage the volume and shape of data amidst an ever-expanding threat landscape. 

We hear time and time again that leaders are limited by the need to balance cutting-edge technology with budget constraints. We get it; cost is always a concern. Decision-makers must weigh the business imperative for security monitoring and threat hunting against the negative impact of poor customer experience, damaged reputation, unplanned downtime, and service latency. Data is power, and you need it to manage those risks. The best data strategy delivers business value and efficiency that contribute to the bottom line. 

The key to success is accessing the right data at the right time and using it to drive results — fast. Splunk is revolutionizing how organizations get what we call unified visibility and insights from their data. That means engineering, IT Ops, and security teams can share data, act quickly, and fix problems faster — all because of a unified view of their data. They can be both strategic and reactive through our newest data management and federation capabilities, combined with data reuse and tools consolidation that provides unified visibility while managing data to keep costs down. 

Data Management 

Our unified data management platform allows end-to-end data processing across the lifecycle of your data based on its usage patterns. You can filter out the noisy data to control volumes, enrich and transform data into the shape and structure you need, and make decisions based on use cases. Proper data management lets you troubleshoot faster, enabling seamless, enterprise-wide visibility into data in motion across a multitude of environments. By focusing on the right data and moving quickly — and not wasting time on the wrong (low value) data — data management helps to optimize costs.

Federation

Our federation capabilities provide a holistic view of data no matter where it resides — edge, multi-cloud, or hybrid. Federation provides detection capabilities and analytics that you can correlate with data outside of Splunk without a costly process, as well as data governance to ensure compliance. This approach streamlines the data analysis process and enhances decision-making capabilities across your organization. With federation, IT and security leaders get vital visibility without the extra work and cost of moving data or storing it in multiple locations.

Data Reuse and Tools Consolidation

Reusing data from different pipelines across multiple security and observability use cases is a best practice. Accessing data through a shared platform lets you get to it faster while avoiding duplication of data management, ingestion, and storage. This approach eliminates redundant work, increases efficiency, and keeps storage costs down. 

The ability to successfully manage vast amounts of data can make or break an organization. Placing budget before agility undermines a strong data strategy. When your data is accessible through Splunk’s unified data platform, you can harness its full force while balancing data, agility, and cost. You’ll give your IT Ops and SecOps teams the powerful data they need to run the business. At the same time, you benefit from an optimized data management approach that fuels innovation without breaking the bank.