Splunk .conf 2019: Premium sports cars, premium digital experience
At Porsche, we live by the philosophy “the last car ever to be built will be a sports car.” The creed of Ferry Porsche has and will continue to guide our work and define our mission. We always try to become better, built better cars, and improve the way we do things for mobility and the customer. In the IT department, we try to adopt that philosophy. Our goal is to deliver a premium digital experience centered around our customers and to build better software every day.
Data is suddenly at the core of our (and almost everyone else’s) business. At Porsche, we’re using data to get more performance, to get more insights, and to make better and more intelligent decisions. In fact, intelligent performance is not possible without data. To make sense of machine-generated log data, we use Splunk, a software and data-to-everything platform that can store and process large amounts of data. It is an awesome data analytics tool that is increasingly being used in our organization. As a colleague of mine recently said, perhaps only half-jokingly, “the last log file ever to be analyzed will be analyzed in Splunk.”
A few weeks ago in October, I had the honour to speak at this year’s Splunk conference, alongside my colleagues Stefan Arnold and Tobias Schug. We were invited to share our story about how we at Porsche are using Splunk, where we’re headed, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. What a great time we had! I am still overwhelmed with all the positive responses, and I would like to share my experience attending and speaking at .conf19 with you in this blog post.
Welcome to Splunk .conf19
Splunk .conf is an annual user conference that brings together IT, security and business professionals working with Splunk. Hosted by the multinational software company Splunk Inc., the conference looks to guide attendees on how to turn their data into action. The conference is the opportunity for Splunk enthusiasts to gather in the same place to engage, connect and share ideas and to hear insights straight from the sources. Splunk .conf19, the 10th event of its kind, was held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from October 21 to 24, and saw a record-breaking 11,000 visitors and 400-plus education sessions.
It was fascinating to see new use cases and to learn how users are taking advantage of Splunk. Each day was packed with content and filled with exciting announcements. In addition to Splunk Partner+ Program updates, the company unveiled the latest upgrades to its flagship analytics suites, with a special focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Doug Merritt, Splunk’s president and CEO, highlighted in his introductory note that the data age is just beginning, arguing that companies must make smarter business by bringing data to every question, decision and action. “The world will depend on those who capture, make sense of and ultimately act on data,” he said. “Your data needs to be liberated to make the right things happen. We are focused on removing the barriers between data and action, empowering people everywhere to bring data to everything.”
I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and speaking with Splunk experts, listening to and learning from the global Splunk community. But now let’s take a closer look at how we at Porsche apply Splunk.
Splunk at Porsche
Our journey began in 2015 when we started working on Porsche Connect, our first major project with Splunk. Today, our digital support relies on Splunk. We have improved our Event Log & Customer Journey Analysis and use Splunk software to prevent problems before they could impact our customers along their digital journey.
Moreover, as we got more familiar with the software, we witnessed an expansion of business use cases. Spunk now helps us to unlock data across all operations. For example, we will use Splunk for the digital customer support of our first electric sports car, the Taycan. Next year, in 2020, Porsche and its partners will manage more than 2000 charging stations globally. To provide a seamless charging experience, we direct Taycan drivers to optimal charging stations. Furthermore, with Splunk and the new machine learning toolkit, we can accurately predict where to build the next charging station.
In our keynote during Splunk .conf19 (please find all keynotes here), we explained Splunk at Porsche more in detail.
Thank you very much to the .conf19 organizers, my colleagues, and to all of you who made this event unique and successful. I hope to see you again next year at .conf20!
Tim Klapper is IT Service Manager Splunk at Porsche. Follow us on Twitter (Porsche Digital, Next Visions), Instagram (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin, Porsche Digital, Next Visions) and LinkedIn (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin, Porsche Digital) for more.
