Cisco steps up full-stack observability play with Splunk tie-ins

An indication of how impactful the Splunk buy could be for Cisco and its customers can be seen in the companies’ plans to integrate their observability platforms. At this week’s Cisco Live event, execs from Cisco and Splunk detailed plans to create what they called a “unified observability experience” to help customers manage applications across on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Cisco closed the Splunk acquisition in May, spending $28 billion to gain the vendor’s wide-reaching technology for searching, monitoring and analyzing system data.

Splunk describes its Observability Cloud as a full-stack, OpenTelemetry-native SaaS platform. Customers use the platform to monitor and troubleshoot their infrastructure, application performance, and end-user experiences. Using AI technology, the platform can spot anomalies and help customers identify the root cause of an error or performance problem, according to Splunk.

Cisco’s Full-Stack Observably Platform is designed to collect and correlate data from application, networking, infrastructure, security, and cloud domains to provide a clear view of what’s going on across the enterprise and make it easier for enterprises to spot anomalies, preempt and address performance problems, and improve threat mitigation.

Cisco’s platform includes performance-monitoring technology gained in two earlier acquisitions: Its ThousandEyes network intelligence solution analyzes Internet routing and cloud connectivity data, for example, while its AppDynamics software specializes in application performance monitoring. Further integrating all of that information with Splunk could significantly boost the expanded platform’s observability capabilities. (Going forward Cisco said its AppDynamics technology will be developed under the Splunk umbrella.) 

The combination of Splunk, AppDynamics, and ThousandEyes will be a critical differentiator for Splunk and Cisco in the observability market, said Cisco president and former Splunk CEO Gary Steele at the Cisco Live event.

Splunk brings depth and detail all the way down through the network to really understand what’s happening, added Tom Casey, senior vice president, products and technology, for Splunk. “And what I’m particularly excited about is our ability to bring and enrich our environment with all of that Cisco network data and thousands of data points, to give customers a fundamentally different perspective on what’s really up and running and why.”

Effectively integrating the observability capabilities of the two vendors will ultimately determine the success or failure of the acquisition, experts said.

“There is a ton of accessible enterprise data, analytics and telemetrics available to Cisco and Splunk, and what will be key for them is to integrate everything effectively – because customers don’t need a package full of different products that they need to figure out how to incorporate and use somehow,” said Neil Anderson, vice president of cloud, infrastructure and AI with technology services provider World Wide Technology.

Integration work has already begun. For example, one new development will let customers integrate logs from Splunk Platform with Cisco AppDynamics and Splunk Observability Cloud for faster troubleshooting across on-prem and hybrid environments, Casey stated.

“This integration lets SaaS and on-prem customers centralize logs and analyze them in context. With this integration, ITOps and engineering teams will be able to view multiple telemetry types for their traditional environments in a single interface, to perform in-context troubleshooting for three-tier and microservices-based applications,” Casey stated.

Another new feature will integrate application performance and business transaction metrics as well as alerts from Cisco AppDynamics with Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) to reduce alert noise and correlate IT health with business KPIs. “By integrating Cisco AIOps with Splunk IT Service Intelligence, alerts and events from Cisco networking devices and infrastructure can be correlated alongside the broader IT estate, for more accurate in-context troubleshooting inclusive of network signals,” Casey stated.

In addition, the unified package will feature new single sign-on (SSO) credentials to help streamline shared workflows between Cisco AppDynamics and Splunk.

The promise of network observability tools

IT organizations are looking to observability tools to help them spot anomalies, preempt performance problems, and remediate security events more quickly. But Cisco/Splunk and other vendors face challenges delivering on the promise of network observability tools and overcoming obstacles related to data integration and telemetry, for example.

“Network observability solutions must provide detailed intelligence and insights to not only assure network integrity but also contribute to complementary and overarching efforts focused on heightened digital infrastructure resiliency,” IDC stated in its recent report, “Top Trends in Network Observability: Heightening Intelligence, Inspection, Insights, Integration, and Innovation.”

“Success of network observability solutions rests on their ability to offer detailed insights into the cloud, bolster security postures and processes, deliver the best user experience, support integration with other management and observability tools, and serve to bolster staff capabilities, productivity, and impact,” IDC stated.

There are still significant challenges in collecting, analyzing, and sharing management data, according to the research firm.

“There are many methods used to gather network intelligence, and the precision of network insights is primarily determined by processing accurate, timely, and complete data sets. Network observability solutions must leverage all available mechanisms – from logs to polls to telemetry to synthetic tests – to develop a complete picture of network conditions and components,” IDC stated.

Other news from Cisco Live:

• Cisco Live: AI takes center stage
• Cisco shows off new AI features to secure data flows
• Cisco gears up to capitalize on Splunk deal, AI revolution
• Cisco debuts CCDE-AI Infrastructure certification