Analytics

Image courtesy of the Splunk on Splunk App

I was a recent attendee of Splunk’s worldwide user’s conference .conf 2012. It was held at the ultra modern and chic Cosmopolitan Hotel located in the heart of Las Vegas, Nevada.  Over 1000 people attended the conference and there were 90+ information sessions geared towards a wide range of Splunk user levels. At any given moment over the 3-day conference, there were 12-16 sessions going on at the same time. There was literally a world of knowledge being handed out to anyone who...

Image: nokhoog_buchachon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You’ve joined an elite team of engineers and administrators tasked to oversee your company’s technological needs.  As your company’s ambitious marketing teams generate more and more buzz, you find that with each day your job circles increasingly around growing your business’s capacity.  Months go by filled with unhindered efforts in project completion.  You’ve helped double your web traffic, beef up your network, and revamp your monitoring system.  ...

As you can tell from the preposterous article title, I take exception to the use, overuse, and misuse of the word Analytics. From the day the first person uttered this word, the word has taken on a life of its own. Analytics at a basic level simply means to distill data so that some information/knowledge can be gleamed in the hopes of making better informed decisions in the business arena or any other for that matter. Early Analytics came in the form of a simple spreadsheet tool such as excel and was a means to do decision , what-if or scenario analysis. Spreadsheets can be used to perform...