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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Performance Monitoring
  4. Performance Monitoring
  5. AWS CloudTrail vs Splunk Cloud

AWS CloudTrail vs Splunk Cloud

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Splunk Cloud
Splunk Cloud
Stacks169
Followers438
Votes15
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail
Stacks304
Followers280
Votes14

AWS CloudTrail vs Splunk Cloud: What are the differences?

Key Differences between AWS CloudTrail and Splunk Cloud

AWS CloudTrail and Splunk Cloud are both widely used platforms for log management and analysis, but they differ in several key aspects. The following are the key differences between AWS CloudTrail and Splunk Cloud.

  1. Data Sources:

    • AWS CloudTrail primarily collects and logs data related to API activity within the AWS platform. It captures events like user logins, service events, and resource changes.
    • Splunk Cloud, on the other hand, is a comprehensive log management and analysis platform that can collect data from a wide range of sources, including AWS CloudTrail, security appliances, application logs, and many others. It enables organizations to centralize their logs from multiple systems.
  2. Deployment and Management:

    • AWS CloudTrail is a fully managed service by Amazon Web Services (AWS), meaning that the infrastructure and management responsibilities are handled by AWS. Users only need to enable and configure CloudTrail through the AWS Management Console.
    • Splunk Cloud, on the other hand, requires users to deploy and manage their own instance of Splunk Cloud. This involves setting up the infrastructure, configuring the environment, and managing the platform's ongoing operations.
  3. Scalability and Elasticity:

    • AWS CloudTrail scales automatically based on the demand of API activity. It can handle high volumes of events and data without requiring users to provision additional resources.
    • Splunk Cloud provides scalability and elasticity by allowing users to dynamically add resources to their deployment as needed. Users can allocate additional resources to handle increased log ingestion and analysis requirements.
  4. Pricing Model:

    • AWS CloudTrail pricing is based on the volume of API events captured and stored, as well as additional charges for data transfer and storage. Users only pay for the resources they consume.
    • Splunk Cloud pricing is based on the volume of data ingested and stored within the platform. The pricing model includes both the data ingestion and storage costs, with different tiers available based on the amount of data being processed.
  5. Out-of-the-Box Functionality:

    • AWS CloudTrail provides built-in integration with other AWS services and features, such as AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and AWS CloudWatch. It offers native integration and the ability to trigger actions based on events.
    • Splunk Cloud offers extensive out-of-the-box functionality for log analysis, including pre-built dashboards, visualizations, and search capabilities. It provides a wide range of features and tools that cater to different use cases and log analysis requirements.
  6. Customizability and Extensibility:

    • AWS CloudTrail allows users to customize the retention period for their log data and configure notifications for specific events. However, customization options are limited compared to Splunk Cloud.
    • Splunk Cloud offers extensive customization capabilities, including the ability to create custom dashboards, alerts, reports, and data visualizations. It also supports the development of custom applications and integrations through its rich ecosystem of apps and plugins.

In summary, AWS CloudTrail is primarily focused on logging AWS API activity, while Splunk Cloud provides a more comprehensive log management and analysis platform that can collect data from various sources. AWS CloudTrail is fully managed by AWS, while Splunk Cloud requires users to deploy and manage their own instance. AWS CloudTrail has a more limited customization scope compared to the extensive customization options offered by Splunk Cloud.

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Advice on Splunk Cloud, AWS CloudTrail

Jigar
Jigar

Security Software Engineer at Cisco

Jul 2, 2020

Needs adviceonAWS IAMAWS IAMAmazon EC2Amazon EC2Splunk CloudSplunk Cloud

We would like to detect unusual config changes that can potentially cause production outage.

Such as, SecurityGroup new allow/deny rule, AuthZ policy change, Secret key/certificate rotation, IP subnet add/drop. The problem is the source of all of these activities is different, i.e., AWS IAM, Amazon EC2, internal prod services, envoy sidecar, etc.

Which of the technology would be best suitable to detect only IMP events (not all activity) from various sources all workload running on AWS and also Splunk Cloud?

168k views168k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Splunk Cloud
Splunk Cloud
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail

If you're looking for all the benefits of Splunk® Enterprise with all the benefits of software-as-a-service, then look no further. Splunk Cloud is backed by a 100% uptime SLA, scales to over 10TB/day, and offers a highly secure environment.

With CloudTrail, you can get a history of AWS API calls for your account, including API calls made via the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, command line tools, and higher-level AWS services (such as AWS CloudFormation). The AWS API call history produced by CloudTrail enables security analysis, resource change tracking, and compliance auditing. The recorded information includes the identity of the API caller, the time of the API call, the source IP address of the API caller, the request parameters, and the response elements returned by the AWS service.

Splunk Cloud delivers all the features of award-winning Splunk® Enterprise, as a cloud-based service. The platform provides access to various apps and enables centralized visibility across cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments; Instant: Instant trial and instant conversion from POC to production; Secure: Completed SOC2 Type 2 Attestation*. Dedicated cloud environments for each customer; Reliable: 100% uptime SLA. All the features of Splunk Enterprise, including apps, APIs, SDKs. 10TB+/day scalability and up to 10x bursting over licensed data volumes**; Hybrid: Centralized visibility across Splunk Cloud (SaaS) and Splunk Enterprise (software);
Increased Visibility- CloudTrail provides increased visibility into your user activity by recording AWS API calls. You can answer questions such as, what actions did a given user take over a given time period? For a given resource, which user has taken actions on it over a given time period? What is the source IP address of a given activity? Which activities failed due to inadequate permissions?;Durable and Inexpensive Log File Storage- CloudTrail uses Amazon S3 for log file storage and delivery, so log files are stored durably and inexpensively. You can use Amazon S3 lifecycle configuration rules to further reduce storage costs. For example, you can define rules to automatically delete old log files or archive them to Amazon Glacier for additional savings.;Easy Administration- CloudTrail is a fully managed service; you simply turn on CloudTrail for your account using the AWS Management Console, the Command Line Interface, or the CloudTrail SDK and start receiving CloudTrail log files in the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket that you specify.;Reliable- CloudTrail continuously transports events from AWS services using a highly available and fault tolerant processing pipeline.;Timely Delivery- CloudTrail typically delivers events within 15 minutes of the API call.;Log File Aggregation- CloudTrail can be configured to aggregate log files across multiple accounts and regions so that log files are delivered to a single bucket. Please refer to the of the AWS CloudTrail User Guide for detailed instructions.;Notifications for Log File Delivery- CloudTrail can be configured to publish a notification for each log file delivered, thus enabling you to automatically take action upon log file delivery. CloudTrail uses the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) for notifications.;Choice of Partner Solutions- Multiple partners including AlertLogic, Boundary, Loggly, Splunk and Sumologic offer integrated solutions to analyze CloudTrail log files. These solutions include features like change tracking, troubleshooting, and security analysis.
Statistics
Stacks
169
Stacks
304
Followers
438
Followers
280
Votes
15
Votes
14
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 7
    More powerful & Integrates with on-prem & off-prem
  • 3
    Free
  • 3
    Powerful log analytics
  • 1
    Pci compliance
  • 1
    Production debugger
Pros
  • 7
    Very easy setup
  • 3
    Good integrations with 3rd party tools
  • 2
    Very powerful
  • 2
    Backup to S3
Integrations
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation
Boundary
Boundary
Loggly
Loggly

What are some alternatives to Splunk Cloud, AWS CloudTrail?

New Relic

New Relic

The world’s best software and DevOps teams rely on New Relic to move faster, make better decisions and create best-in-class digital experiences. If you run software, you need to run New Relic. More than 50% of the Fortune 100 do too.

Datadog

Datadog

Datadog is the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring. It is used by IT, operations, and development teams who build and operate applications that run on dynamic or hybrid cloud infrastructure. Start monitoring in minutes with Datadog!

Papertrail

Papertrail

Papertrail helps detect, resolve, and avoid infrastructure problems using log messages. Papertrail's practicality comes from our own experience as sysadmins, developers, and entrepreneurs.

Logmatic

Logmatic

Get a clear overview of what is happening across your distributed environments, and spot the needle in the haystack in no time. Build dynamic analyses and identify improvements for your software, your user experience and your business.

Raygun

Raygun

Raygun gives you a window into how users are really experiencing your software applications. Detect, diagnose and resolve issues that are affecting end users with greater speed and accuracy.

Loggly

Loggly

It is a SaaS solution to manage your log data. There is nothing to install and updates are automatically applied to your Loggly subdomain.

Logentries

Logentries

Logentries makes machine-generated log data easily accessible to IT operations, development, and business analysis teams of all sizes. With the broadest platform support and an open API, Logentries brings the value of log-level data to any system, to any team member, and to a community of more than 25,000 worldwide users.

Logstash

Logstash

Logstash is a tool for managing events and logs. You can use it to collect logs, parse them, and store them for later use (like, for searching). If you store them in Elasticsearch, you can view and analyze them with Kibana.

AppSignal

AppSignal

AppSignal gives you and your team alerts and detailed metrics about your Ruby, Node.js or Elixir application. Sensible pricing, no aggressive sales & support by developers.

Graylog

Graylog

Centralize and aggregate all your log files for 100% visibility. Use our powerful query language to search through terabytes of log data to discover and analyze important information.

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