Chapter 1. Splunk Web Framework Fundamentals

My history with Splunk goes back about 4 years to when I was working for a company that was building a browser plugin. All of the logging for all the users was going to be built around Splunk. I am not sure whether they knew the implications, but it was not until some 2 years later that I saw the full benefit of making this decision. I had been convinced of the power of Splunk. I saw it as a great platform to build and develop applications and reports with ease, and it should be looked at in exactly the same way as LAMP or other development stacks. I also saw the opportunity to write a book about the Splunk Web Framework as a great way to show other people what I have learned without them having to waste the time of trial and error that I had to.

If you have not yet installed Splunk on a virtual machine, server, or your own PC or laptop, it is probably best to get this done now before moving further. Towards the end of this chapter, we will introduce the data and example projects that we will be working on throughout this book. The example work that we will be performing throughout this book will be on a Linux or Mac platform. You should be able to follow along if you are using a different platform. If you have not installed Splunk before, you will be able to get all the details you need for your installation at the following link:  http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.3.3/Installation/Chooseyourplatform .

So you've installed Splunk, got things running, and now what? Hopefully, that is where this book will come in and help you get the ball rolling, making fresh, interactive, useful, and dynamic applications using the Splunk Web Framework. We are hoping that we can actually get you creating some interesting applications without the usual log, index, search, graph, and report documentation that seems to be out in abundance.