Tableau and Splunk collaborate to create enhanced visual anaytics

Splunk Inc. , a provider of software platforms for real-time operational intelligence, and Tableau Software, a supplier of rapid-fire, easy-to-use business analytics software, announced on March 5 a strategic alliance to leverage the power of visual analytics and real-time machine data.

As part of a joint technology investment, the latest version of Tableau software includes Splunk Enterprise as a native data source using Splunk’s recently launched ODBC driver.

“Tableau is the most widely recognized provider of visual analytics software,” said Guido Schroeder, senior vice president of products at Splunk. “Our alliance with Tableau extends the value that Splunk software unlocks in machine data. Using Tableau to visualize structured data with machine data in Splunk will enable people to gain new business insights.”

“Splunk leads the market in enabling organizations to collect, index and make searchable machine data from apps, servers, networks, Web sites and devices in real time,” said Chris Stolte, chief development officer and co-founder of Tableau Software. “Our integration lets organizations use our visual analytics software on their machine data in Splunk software. Whether it’s to find quick insights or explore machine data, it accelerates new insights for anyone using Tableau and Splunk.”

The direct connection between Splunk and Tableau provides the following benefits:

• Makes it easier for Tableau users to visualize machine data and find new insights – Users can now leverage Tableau to visualize machine data from Splunk Enterprise, enabling new business insights from a rapidly growing class of data.
• New source of valuable data now available to more people – People can now access a new source of valuable machine data with Splunk Enterprise. These capabilities are complementary to the real-time and historical visualizations and analytics across large data sets in Splunk Enterprise.
• Correlate machine data with other structured data – The integration enables users to correlate, analyze and visualize machine data with other structured data for advanced business analytics.

The integration provides direct access to saved searches within Splunk Enterprise 6 from Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server, using Splunk’s new ODBC driver, for further data exploration and visualization.