The real-time operational intelligence firm, which was recently named a Gartner APM Innovator, sandwiched an initial public offering in between two major enterprise security announcements.

Splunk's latest innovation, Enterprise Security Intelligence Solution, includes the Splunk App for Enterprise Security 2.0, and Splunk Enterprise 4.3, the company's flagship software for collecting, indexing and harnessing machine data .

"While more and more organizations are embracing the power of Big Data, many are ignoring the security threats that lurk within that information," said Christina Noren, senior vice president of solutions for Splunk. "Customers who use Splunk Enterprise to monitor and analyze machine data to gain insights into their operations in real-time can use the Splunk App for Enterprise Security to monitor, identify, investigate and respond to critical known and unknown security threats."

Big Data Meets Security Intelligence

Splunk Enterprise works to offer visibility into increasingly security-relevant IT events -- even those that some might see as beyond the purview of typical security solutions. Splunk offers this visibility through a Big Data engine that aims to help security professionals understand unknown threats hidden as patterns in terabytes of normal user-credentialed activities. Those unknown threats could include advanced malware or a malicious insider.

"Splunk is at the forefront of helping organizations harness their Big Data," said Rachel Chalmers, research director of infrastructure management at The 451 Group. "Splunk 4.3 is an exciting, logical and evolutionary step that embraces mobility and increased ease of use. Splunk 4.3 is especially important for business users, with dashboards that provide insights -- integrating real-time and historical data for analysis, and which are easy for business users to personalize on the fly."

The Splunk App for Enterprise Security combines with the core Splunk engine to deliver a next-generation security solution for monitoring known threats, support for forensic investigations, big data analytics to help identify advanced persistent threats, and dashboards for security posture and investigation workflows.

"Big Data and security analytics have become joined at the hip as of late," said Andrew Hay, senior analyst for 451 Research's Enterprise Security Practice. "The out-of-the-box security content of the new Splunk App for Enterprise Security, combined with the Big Data analytics capabilities of the Splunk platform, delivers users a SIEM-like experience for massive data sets."

Profitable Q4

Splunk reported year-over-year fourth-quarter revenue growth of 95 percent. The company also announced that, with the addition of more than 350 new paid license customers, its customer base extends to more than 3,200 organizations in more than 75 countries, including more than half the Fortune 100 companies. Splunk also recently added Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo, to its board of directors.

"The need for companies to be able to organize, understand and act on their data is more important than ever," Thompson said. "Splunk is providing business with the ability to get valuable new insights from machine data in a way that I believe no one else is today. I'm honored to take on this opportunity."