Here are some of the greatest hits:

• PCI App (Creative Commons Version) – Peter Bassill (aka BinaryArp) hacked on a newer and much improved version 1.0 of his PCI (Payment Card Industry) app in time for our Users’ Conference that took place earlier this month. And by the end of this month, he had already added 2 more revisions culminating in version 1.2 uploaded on 8/29. If you need to satisfy PCI compliance requirements, you might want to take a look.
• Splunk for Nagios - Luke Harris posted his Splunk for Nagios add-on just as I was thinking about writing one myself. This is something quite a few users have requested, and now we have it, thanks to Luke. With this app, you can search Nagios alerts and notifications and graph problems over time.
• Google Maps for Splunk – This add-on provides a module to display events/results of Splunk searches on a Google map. Thanks to Siegfried Puchbauer for writing up this one.

One of these may win the grand prize… or not! The contest hasn’t ended yet, and we haven’t commenced voting.

Think you have what it takes? Submit your app or add-on to Splunkbase and be eligible to win.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Splunk Answers juggernaut is racing past milestones. We launched Answers in early April to little fanfare. In June we reached the 1,000 question milestone. And in late July we reached the 2,000 question milestone. And on August 18, 2010, Splunk Answers surpassed 1,000 users. We had no idea when we started Answers that it would catch on this rapidly. Just two weeks ago we reached 800 users, and usage has spiked since then. I wish I could say we had to make a special effort for Splunk Answers to reach the heights it has, but the truth is that it has caught on organically with our users who found it very useful to get quick answers to their questions. Fancy that.

Splunk Answers Screenshot

Top Community Users

While we’re at it, I’d like to take a moment and single out our top community contributors on Splunk Answers.

Special mention goes to Lowell (from Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe), ftk (from CallMiner), and muebel (from Netsmart), who all attended our glorious users’ conference – it was great meeting you in person.

What: “Managing an Enterprise Deployment: Lessons Learned”
Who: Allan Burnett, VMware
When: Tuesday, August 10, 11:15 am

What: “Heroku and Splunk”
Who: Oren Teich, Heroku
When: Tuesday, August 10, 2:45 pm

What: “Keeping Developers Happy: Secure Access to Production Logs for Rapid Troubleshooting”
Who: Nancy Cunningham, LogicalExtremes
When: Wednesday, August 11, 9:15 am

There’s still time, so take a moment and register now.

*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!

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.

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.

• 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!

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.