The second day of Splunk conf has wrapped up. This time, we kicked things off with a technical keynote that had everyone buzzing.
Keynotes are here to set the vibe/mode of a conference, with the technical details coming later in the tech sessions or hallway conversations. Last year’s keynote received mixed reviews-maybe it was a bit too negative and certainly not a highlight. From what I’ve heard, this year’s keynote was significantly better.
So far, the general mood among customers and partners is pretty positive, though they have completely different perspectives. Customers want solutions for their challenges, features they can ride on, and roadmaps, which usually goes quite well. On the other hand, the technical sessions spark a lot of cool ideas for techies to implement back at their companies.
For partners, it’s more about what’s next now that Cisco has bought Splunk and how the integration of 75’000 Cisco partners with the significantly fewer Splunk partners will play out. But even here, the message delivered was cautiously optimistic.
As a highlight from the keynote, there was the unveiling of Splunk Security Enterprise 8.0, the Splunk AI Assistant for SPL, ITSI 4.19 with AI features, the Splunk Edge Processor now in GA, Splunk SOAR 6.3, and general news about Splunk Observability.
But hey, I think I’ll save the deep dive for a separate blog post someday. This micro blog is just to keep things light and breezy.
After the keynote, the technical sessions began. I focused on ITSI and Security, although I did miss a few planned sessions due to catching up with various people. For clients who couldn’t attend, I submitted several questions to different Splunk teams, hoping to get answers post-conference.
On the downside, I missed the User Group Leader meeting and the Advisory Board session.
My excuse? A brief (but evidently necessary) nap. I planned for a quick 15-minute rest but ended up taking an unplanned trip to Dreamland. With only about 3 hours of sleep per night since last Friday, my body decided it was time for a longer pit stop.
Thankfully, I woke up before dinner thanks to a timely WhatsApp from Oli. After dinner, we headed to Fremont for some evening activities.
All in all, a packed and productive day with a bit of unintended comedy. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings.
