By Splunk July 19, 2012
Hello! How may I help you? Hmmm … you want to visualize your indexed data with other means other than the traditional pie charts, bar charts and tables? I see … and you want to have full control to integrate external tools and plugins into your app because you are feeling adventurous? Is that possible with Splunk?
APPS-olutely!
Come join us and learn more in the Developing on Splunk sessions at .conf!
Let’s discover together the interesting yet easy to understand approach in developing custom apps that work seamlessly with Splunk as your data platform. Explore the ways how to make use of external tools to visualize your events as illustrated below:
Wow … what did you just see? That’s right … a directed graph. The directed graph is used to represent the indexed events with each event contains details of a Facebook app (JSON snippet below). Trust me, when you are trying to make sense of your data and want to be able to quickly get a gist of it, you may want to consider using more helpful visualization methods, rather than deducing the data by yourself with … “tables”? Tables are useful to present to you the values in rows and columns. But how about the idea of squashing and fitting all the data and visualizing it in one page The directed graph represents the hierarchy of the apps by reorganizing them into categories and subcategories:
[
{
"app_developers": "",
"app_logo_url": "http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc7/v27562/199/256799621935/app_1_256799621935_2089.gif",
"app_id": "256799621935",
"app_search_timestamp": "1341813310",
"app_description": "Collect and customize cars, build your dream garage and race against your friends! Join the millions playing!",
"app_namespace": "cartown",
"app_icon_url": "http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc7/v27562/199/256799621935/app_2_256799621935_1837.gif",
"app_display_name": "Car Town",
"app_q": "car",
"app_subcategory": "Simulation",
"app_company_name": "Cie Games",
"app_category": "Games"
},
{
"app_developers": "",
"app_logo_url": "http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc7/v43/231/83187307959/app_1_83187307959_7825.gif",
"app_id": "83187307959",
"app_search_timestamp": "1341813310",
"app_description": "Want to share your Care2 life with your Facebook friends? Facebook Connect makes it easy to post your Care2 actions, like signing a petition or adding a comment, to your Facebook feed.",
"app_namespace": "None",
"app_icon_url": "http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc7/v43/231/83187307959/app_2_83187307959_815.gif",
"app_display_name": "Care2",
"app_q": "car",
"app_subcategory": "",
"app_company_name": "Care2, Inc",
"app_category": ""
},
{
"app_developers": "",
"app_logo_url": "http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc7/v27562/220/104991809574424/app_1_104991809574424_9747.gif",
"app_id": "104991809574424",
"app_search_timestamp": "1341813310",
"app_description": "Stop the cars from crashing in this chaotic traffic jam!",
"app_namespace": "mj-carchaos",
"app_icon_url": "http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc7/v85005/220/104991809574424/app_2_104991809574424_1533538639.gif",
"app_display_name": "CarChaos",
"app_q": "car",
"app_subcategory": "Action & Arcade",
"app_company_name": "Mindjolt",
"app_category": "Games"
},
...
...
...
]
You will be able to know the landscape of your data the moment you look at the graph.
Ahhh … such new and enriching experience.
How about customizing the list of the search results? Can you personalize the look and feel of the pagination of the search results such as depicted below? APPS-olutely!
Splunk as data platform + good visualization + creativity = BIG WIN
APPS-olutely …
We are excited to see you at the “Building Splunk Apps:The Fun and Unconventional Way” session at .conf!
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Thanks!
Nicholas Key