Splunk is here for a years. It was born, it grews and passed the maturity level. What that three sentences mean? Very simply said – it is time to play. I found out, that to play within Splunk is joy, happiness, relax and so it came to my mind to share that experience with people. I looked for a proper tool that could help me to convey all that with others, Ray shows me how. And Eugen assists. So that is my way to approach big data, because All is essentialy big data. To see it is kind of step to consciousness, isn’t it?

1. Zen and Big Data
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3 Zen-reasons I Chose Splunk
Beyond the technology, thank you Mr. Bradbury and Herrigel
Preface
Splunk is here for a years. It was born, it grews and passed the maturity level. What that three sentences mean?
Very simply said – it is time to play. I found out, that to play within Splunk is joy, happiness, relax and so it came
to my mind to share that experience with people. I looked for a proper tool that could help me to convey all that
with others, Ray shows me how. And Eugen assists.
So that is my way to approach big data, because All is essentialy big data. To see it is kind of step to consciousness,
isn’t it?
Kamil Brzak
- Guy who realizes that many things are still unrealized

2. Zen and Big Data
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1. Let It Arrive, Let It Go
Let your data flow. Build up the system that can let all of
them flow and take the best from it. Like you mind. It should
be a system that could let your thoughts flow, observe them
and take the best.
Many, literally most of, cases you would like to solve are target-driven. It is good and it gets money for you or
your company. But how about big data? It is, especially here in my country marked as „EMEA“ very new area.
Lot of companies here dwell on „old“ paradigms and they teach only, how to change that state of mind slowly,
in fact. State of mind. Isn’t it something what holds us down?
You can stop now and say „hey, that guy must be insane... we are data scientists here, no monks“. Well, my
answer is, your state of mind talks to me. And I can show you why.
Splunk is like Zen. Zen is not about reaching a kind of state of mind. As well as Splunk is not about reaching a
perfect database schema, size, perfect result at first. Perfectioness is the contrary side of limit. You can feel it
and see it in different situations of life. E.g. you would like to be a perfect student or you wish your kids would
be perfect students. You drill, you spent lot of time focused on results. It is fine, you could be successful and
happy in your life. But what about the rest of the world while you focus? Lot of things happen, lot of inputs
flow around you with no perception from your side. Many of them could help you, improve your way or warn
you. And it happens again and again and if you take some of that, your way to results and happiness could be
shorter, richer or calmer.
State of mind. It sounds like rigid schema. Zen is about flow. You observe and get wiser. And the same words
I can use when I attempt to describe Splunk. You can see what you could not so far, you can get wiser, you
can reach the success faster.
And small remark to the end of paragraph. I repeated „success“ twice. What is the perspective of that? Success
I understand not the target somewhere in the future. It is not something I have to focus only for me. It is a
process, continuous process of improvement of myself and things around.

3. Zen and Big Data
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2. Don‘t Look for Zen by Attracting to Archery
Do not be scared of new things. If you are the beginner in
anything, you have got a great advantage. Your mind is free,
unrestrained, with countless opportunities. Mind of expert is
about knowledge only.
As my first experience with Splunk came, I was excited and scared together. New area, new challenges... could
I manage it? What exactly I can get? And what about all that stuff will be too complex? Kind of that questions
flown through my head. Until I tried it. Than I realized that immediately after first data went to Splunk I could
see all that magic. Many new values, correlations.. it was like I watch a living organism.
Furthermore new experience occured – similarly to Zen. If I want to know something, I should simply do it.
There are thousands of texts (including this one) describing what is Splunk, big data, how to approach it, how
to buy it, sell it, feed it. But the only thing that matters is – to do it.

4. Zen and Big Data
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3. Release the Bow String
What I really did, was only to release the string. I started to
use Splunk. The big revolution expected is in fact no
revolution. It is just a different perspective and realization
that all.
What really helped was the fact Splunk has a huge support ecosystem. You can read about it on every
important places, you can share your questions and see the answers on blogs, forums, documentation sites.
Everything you feel you need to know is searchable. As the Splunk itself do with data. I was happy first time
with Splunk that I knew neither about data feeding in and I was able to operate that. I never faced the point I
could not move ahead because of lack of information about.
In sum, there in fact is no obstacle to release the bow string. As one of prooves you can get that I wrote this
article the way I wrote. 