Conf23: Splunk Partners Looking Forward to Edge Hub, Other New Offerings

SPLUNK .CONF23 — As .Conf23 nears its end, Splunk partners are ready to make use of offerings unveiled during the conference.

Among them are Splunk AI, new product innovations to Splunk’s security and observability platform, and Splunk Edge Hub, the first product exclusively for Splunk partners.

Jimmy Moore, president and CEO of Bridge Tech Global, a South Carolina-based Splunk partner, said his company just received an international project to help a country digitize its water infrastructure.

“And we want to use Splunk and these Edge Hubs to help implement that project,” he said. “So that’s where it’s going next for us. We got the contract, so now it’s implementation time. This is perfect timing for us.”

Splunk Edge Hub to Improve Water Conservation

One of the use cases Bridge Tech Global brought to Splunk was water conservation using artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT, along with Splunk Edge Hub to give municipalities and countries a way to see how they can improve their water usage, Moore said.

“It’s hermetically sealed so we can use Edge Hub outside as well as inside. That just makes it easier for us to deploy new use cases, and be able to import that data and do something with it,” he said.

Also on hand at .Conf23 was Jacob Bolm, Optiv‘s senior practice director. This week, Splunk named Optiv its Americas Partner of the Year for the second year in a row.

“We partner with Splunk in a number of ways,” he said. “We obviously sell their product. We also provide professional services around implementing and maturing their platform, as well as managed services for managing Splunk engagements or Splunk deployments with some of our mutual clients.”

Early Access to Splunk Edge Hub

Optiv received early access to Splunk Edge Hub so it could get a feel for it, Bolm said.

Optiv’s Jacob Bolm

“We have a dedicated IoT practice already and we gave that to our director of that, Shawn Tufts,” he said. “He has an absolutely fascinating and hilarious use case about using his Edge Hub in his chicken coop and now his son is the primary threat actor to the chicken coop. But while it’s a fun example, it does go and show the versatility and the power of the Edge Hub, and how that data can be pulled into a broader, more traditional industrial-controls setting as well, and how that feeds into the greater Splunk ecosystem. So we’re very interested to see that take off in the market.”

Optiv also is looking forward to seeing where Splunk AI goes, Bolm said.

“Obviously AI is a buzzword in the industry right now, and we have our own discussions around what AI means to clients, and what they can and can’t get out of it,” he said. “There are a lot of misconceptions right now, so we’re certainly anticipating some discussions with clients more in depth around how to use the power of AI to better secure their environments and make more use out of their data. So we’re excited about that, too.”

Splunk Partners Critical to Customer Experience

The importance of customer experience was a big topic at .Conf23. Toni Pavlovich, Splunk’s chief customer officer, said partners are critical in delivering a positive customer experience.

Splunk’s Toni Pavlovich

“First, partners are a priority, and that has been my philosophy six years here at Splunk and through my career,” she said. “Partners are an extension of us. They make the ecosystem bigger. We can’t do it on our own. And the partners are, again, in front of customers all the time. And a reflection of the work that they do is a reflection of the work that we do. So it’s critical for us to make sure that, [first], they understand that we view them as critically important to our customer success, and [second], that we provide them with the right training, the right incentives, all the things that a partner would want so that they in fact are feeling like Splunk is as important to them as it is to our customers. And they want that customer to be successful like we do.

“So whether it be partners who are delivering services, we want to make sure they have the right training, they have the right opportunities, they have the right incentives, and that we’re lining them up and we want it to be customers’ preference and partners’ preference. So meet them where they are and make sure that we are providing them opportunities and whatever help we need to make sure that that works.”

Customer experience is a high priority with partners, Pavlovich said.

“Partners want that, too,” she said. “At the end of the day, if customers aren’t successful, none of us is successful. That’s the only point of view that I can take. And so partners want to know how can they be even better for customers. So partners are taking time to train their people and get the certifications, making sure that they’re aligning with our teams and understanding how we partner together to be as effective for customers and making sure that the things that they are doing for our customers, again, are in service of success for them. So it’s as important for partners as it is for us. We are grateful for them because they do provide that same point of view and lens, and think about how do we do it better together, how do they do it with our help and support.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from the Splunk .Conf23 Source Pavilion.