SplunkBase Brings IT Troubleshooting Wiki to the Masses 128
OSS_ilation writes "IT troubleshooting firm Splunk is using LinuxWorld Boston as a platform to formally launch Splunk Base, a global wiki that will offer IT pros a free-of-charge venue to exchange troubleshooting information, tools and fixes. Splunk is promising that the wiki is completely vendor neutral, and can be compared to Wikipedia, the online open encyclopedia that is regulated and updated by the community-at-large. Users don't even have to have a copy of Splunk Professional to use it. From the article: 'If you believe the research from firms like Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, then Splunk Base has arrived at a key moment. According to IDC, companies will spend more than $100 billion this year on managing the world's data centers. And with virtualization quickly becoming an IT buzzword in 2006, the complexity and costs could increase.'"
how long until (Score:4, Insightful)
Worst slashvertizement as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Great Concept (Score:3, Insightful)
Being an IT professional, it is hard to track down solutions to difficult problems using Google alone. If you Google a problem, odds are you are going to wind up finding a message board where someone has the same issue, but no solution has been posted.
Who's going to proofread? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've also worked with some excellent techs that I've tried to learn from as much as possible, and I try to emulate as I work with customers. These are the ones that see a problem and dig in and try and solve it. Yeah, it takes time but the knowledge base built up can be helpful.
So.. on a database like this.. who's to watch the submissions to select if it's a real tested and found solution, versus something else that doesn't really work? And who's to say the solution provided is from an actual PC tech and not an armchair one? If I had a dime for every time a "friend that knows lots about computers" screws one up..
Re:A little late to the party, don't you think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly. This looks promising.
Eh, this may be good ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would love (and avidly use) such a beast with the capabilities they are talking about. If I am not mistaken, I could search for something like
VT Enabled Xen Windows 2003 Server
And get what I need out of it quickly. I've also got a laundry list of very odd cryptic errors in openSSI I'd love to find the causes of
Looks like experts exchange is about to be selling cheap ad space
Re:A little late to the party, don't you think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Expert's Exchange requires you to scroll three screens past advertisements from the actual question to the answers (when they're actually available without registering, that is). Not to mention the disgusting IntelliTXT ads they insert into the actual text...
Google can be frustrating, especaially if your search terms center around things like "C++".
Thus, I'm open to better ways of doing things, and I'll be looking at this to see if it is one.
Re:A little late to the party, don't you think? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia: is an encyclopedia, not a help forum for computer problems.
Expert's Exchange: just plain sucks.
Google: is a good resource, but does not allow collaboration and two-way communication.
i don't know about that (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you guys look at it? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is nothing like wikipedia. It is a log file aggregator. It's a program that transmits and indexes log files on your UNIX/LINUX machine(s). How is that like wikipedia in the slightest? Granted, users can comment on log entries and create a knowledge base, but that doesn't make it wikipedia at all.
I think they've made a cool tool here. I can see it being useful. But the fact that they are targeting businesses and yet it trasmits all log data to a remote location will make most businesses uneasy. If the application could be setup to keep all data internal, this could be a neat tool for system administrators. But in its current form, it's only really good for hobbyists and other people who don't mind having the guts of their servers on the web ready to be searched by strangers.
Google groups (Score:3, Insightful)
I ALWAYS reboot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:how long until (Score:3, Insightful)
How will the content be licensed? Who will own it? (Score:4, Insightful)
How does a person know, when they're contributing, that Splunk isn't going to take the site's content at some point down the road, and turn it into some steaming pile of ads and subscription fees like Experts Exchange?
If it's a wiki, it's difficult to separate individual contributions, so a Slashdot-style "Comments are owned by the Poster" probably wouldn't work. The actual work has to be owned by somebody, and frankly I don't know Splunk from Adam and I'd certainly question whether I wanted to spend a lot of time writing an article if at some point it might just become part of their "Premium Membership" service, or if they won't let other people mirror it as a backup in case they decide that being 'community oriented' isn't paying the bills in the way they thought it would.
Is your computer plugged in? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sir, can I interest you in some Splunk? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that bad, probably a play on the word 'spelunk', cave exploring. Not an inappropriate reference...
they are a very frequent advertiser here on Slashdot which should have been mentioned.
Why? Unless you've been browsing
Plenty of tools do the same thing. Both Open Source and proprietary.
Care to list a few of the better ones? I'm in dire need of just such a tool right now.
Give ExpertsExchange some competition when it comes to IT peer questions and answers.
I second that, though I think this wiki will focus more on cryptic log-file errors rather than any programming/config/admin question you can come up with. At least it will be free, though.