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Brothers and sisters of the Splunk persuasion, I present to you the Splunk App-of-the-month contest!

*Applause*

This is not your hipster’s app contest – this is a contest about Getting. Stuff. Done.

*Applause*

This is a contest about taking all the cool stuff you already do with Splunk, and showing it off for the world to see! On Splunkbase!

*Applause*

This is a contest about rewarding those who create the coolest, most useful apps on Splunk – and everyone’s a winner!

*Applause*

So come one, come all, package your field extractions, views, dashboards, scripted inputs, and other Splunk mods into apps or add-ons for Splunkbaaaaaaaase! Contest begins on August 1 – enter as often as you wish!

I was going to write up a big post about how awesome it was to be pilloried by all the attendees of Cisco Live – to the tune of 1,000 people coming by our booth to learn more about Splunk. But then I thought, why not just show it in action? Worth a thousand words – one per booth visitor:

Cisco Live attendees line up for Splunk booth

One of the great joys of my job is meeting with users and customers in an informal setting. As we organize the thousands of Splunk users around the world, I’ve started to make the rounds at some informal meetups and gatherings. First it was Chicago in March, and now it’s Los Angeles on May 20. And just for good measure, there’s another user group meetup in Columbus, OH on the same day, although I cannot, unfortunately, be in two places at once – where is that confounded teleportation device?.

This is just the beginning, as many more user groups – some virtual – will start to pup up around the world. User groups are all about sharing your experiences with your peers over beer and pizza and are small in size. There is lots of discussion, lots of hanging out, and lots of learning from each other. Look for more information over the next couple of weeks featuring a user group home on on the web and an easy way for you to setup a user group or event.

In the meantime, if you live near either Columbus, OH or Los Angeles, CA, come by and check it out. See the links below:

Splunk User Group of Los Angeles

Thursday, May 20, 6:30 pm at Edmunds.com

RSVP here

Splunk User Group of Columbus, OH

Thursday, May 20, 6:30 pm

RSVP here

We hope you’ll consider attending a meetup in your area – or contact me if you’d like to start one. Sign up at meetup.com and get notified of new Splunk user group events.

My fellow blogger and roustabout Savio Rodrigues has posted something interesting over at the Open Sources blog:

One of open source’s promises is to minimize vendor lock-in. However, it’s not so apparent that this value proposition holds when using software as a service (SaaS) or cloud-based platform services.

This is a great point and one we discussed at great length at last night’s Open Cloud Meetup here at Splunk HQ. One of the topics we covered was how open source seems less relevant in a cloud-y, saas-y world. Sure, everyone loves to participate in Open Source communities. While Splunk has never defined itself as an Open Source company or released an open source product, we are Open Source-friendly and participate in a few Open Source projects and communities. It seems that the Open Source Definition, created specifically to canonize the rights and expectations around software, has very little to say about movement of data in clouds and services created around that data. Furthermore, Open Source has always defined software distribution as sending the physical bits and bytes to your local media – with the exception of the more recent AGPL v3. In a world where most software interaction takes place on a local hard drive and with local data, this makes sense, and the sticky question of what happens to the data was easily deferred until some indeterminate date in the future.

That future is now, because with data and software indelibly fused together in a synthesis of services delivered over networks and between massive data centers, the relevance of open source and, specifically, access to source code, can only decrease over time. So yes, Savio has it exactly right that open source is not enough. However, I think it’s a bit more nuanced than his statement, which I think is a bit simplistic:

Open APIs — not open source — will protect future freedom of action in the cloud

Well… maybe? The problem with the concept of “Open API’s” is that it’s easily gamed and poorly defined – usually by design. If I publish my APIs and then change them often, thus breaking your implementations regularly, is that still really open? Does that actually protect you from lock-in? APIs have a tendency to creep. And some companies trademark their APIs just to get that extra lock-in zing, to prevent competitors from taking away customers. However, if that open API were accompanied by an open source project, giving the developer, end user, and customer advance notice of changes, lock-in might be prevented.

No one is suggesting that APIs must be locked in stone or that companies must release source code for their cloud products. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that the subject of vendor lock-in in the cloud is a bit more complicated than simply “Open Source is good” or “Open APIs are good.” The truth is, the use of both will play a role in the opening (or closing) of the cloud.

This morning we released some news about our most recent community initiatives – Splunk Answers, Splunkbase, our first Splunk Worldwide Users’ Conference, and the hiring of yours truly as our Director of Community. I’ve been a long-time admirer of Splunk, and I feel lucky to be here. I’m very excited about all the new community activity, which I’ll comment on below, and you can look forward to a lot more where that came from.

• Splunk Answers – Now you can ask any Splunk-related technical “How to“ question and quickly get the answer you need from other Splunk pros. If you like Stack Overflow, you’ll love Splunk Answers.
• Splunkbase – Browse, download and post Splunk apps and add-ons that help you make better use of Splunk (re-launched in February 2010). Many of you told us that you really wanted Splunkbase to come back, and we were listening. I’m happy to report that we’re fixing the problems that persisted in its previous iteration, and you’ll see many new updates on this over the next weeks and months.
• Splunk Worldwide Users’ Conference – The first event of its kind, coming this August to San Francisco. If you use Splunk regularly and want to get more out of it, this event is tailored for you. And if you do cool things with Splunk, you’ll want to come here and teach others.

But wait, there’s more! We have just started talking about how to organize and support groups of local Splunkers. Our goal is to build the largest enterprise software community in the world, and you can be a part of it. We’re also discussing how to better serve the Splunk community on the web. What do you think? What is your biggest gripe about the Splunk community? Now is the perfect time to tell us what to do, so put it in the comments below!

I’ve read a bit of angst about cloud lock-in, a lot of weed pulling in the form of interoperability standards for the cloud, and a manifesto or two about ‘Open Cloud’. And in between, I’ve seen lots of interesting new tools for cloud computing, and lots of narratives about how the tools, combined with the formalization of use cases, pave the way for open clouds.

But what, exactly, does “Open Cloud” mean? And what role does open source play? Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, likes to say that open source and the cloud go together like peanut butter and chocolate. But does open source necessarily mean open cloud, and vice-versa?

Read the complete article on OStatic.

Here’s something to get behind -

Streets Alive San Mateo County.