Resources: Training Videos, Courses, Documentation, and More

Introductory Online Videos

These videos from Splunk are a great resource for getting started:

Find more videos at https://www.splunk.com/en_us/training/videos/all-videos.html  and on the Splunk How-To channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/SplunkHowTo .

Courses

Splunk offers a significant “Education” program.  It also offers specific segments of its customer base, including Higher Education, special programs with additional training resources.  This program is called “Splunk Pledge”.  To understand the special offerings (under Splunk Pledge) available to us at the University of Illinois and to plan out the courses you may be interested in, the best place to start is the Splunk Basic Subscription Plan datasheet.  NOTE: The datasheet is not “Splunk Pledge”-specific, and course links have other issues.  We don’t recommend using the links to the courses from this datasheet.  When ready to register, see “When you are ready to register” information below.

The datasheet provides a good overview of recommended “tracks” or “learning pathways” for developing Splunk skills to meet your goals.

  • Free introductory courses
  • Free (and not free) “Search Expert” track
  • Free (and not free) “Knowledge Manager” track

When you are ready to register, please visit the Splunk Pledge Benefits Program page to register.  When you first sign up to create an account with Splunk, be sure to use your @illinois.edu email address. Please note and follow the instructions on this page to use the Discount Code mentioned (as of this writing, the Discount Code instructions are in Step 5 of the instructions at the top of the Splunk Pledge page).

Following the guidance above will ensure you take advantage of the Splunk Pledge offering.  If you want to take courses beyond what is covered in Splunk Pledge, please feel free to do so.  Be sure to use your @illinois.edu account to take advantage of any benefits it offers.  Further, feel free to contact the Splunk at Illinois team (splunk-admin@illinois.edu) for the possibility of access to Education Credits.

For reference only: If you care to learn more about the specific programs Splunk has for Colleges and Universities (which fall under the umbrella “Splunk Pledge” program)…

For reference only:  Visit Splunk’s Training & Certification site for more about training and certification programs at Splunk.

Documentation and Other Online Resources

docs.splunk.com

docs.splunk.com is where Splunk makes available its rather robust body of documentation.

As of this writing, we recommend using Google to search this site. For example, “splunk timechart command”, or “site:docs.splunk.com timechart command”.

community.splunk.com (was answers.splunk.com)

community.splunk.com (previously answers.splunk.com) is Splunk’s “Community Q&A” site; it is very active and very useful. If you are seeking a solution to a problem that you can’t find in docs.splunk.com, it is likely someone has asked the question before and that an answer has been offered up here. While there can be outdated and incorrect information here (it is crowd-sourced), it is in many cases information from Splunk ‘gurus’ and actual Splunk staff. It can also serve as a tool for our work with Splunk Support – where the question is asked in community.splunk.com and the Splunk engineering team can provide answers there. As of this writing, we recommend using Google to search this site – for example, “splunk timechart command”, or “site:community.splunk.com timechart command”.

splunk-usergroups.slack.com

For a more real-time access to expertise, check out the Splunk Usergroups Slack space.

Quick Reference Guide

The Splunk Quick Reference Guide is printed out and pinned up next to every Splunk Admin’s desk.

Go Splunk

Take a look at gosplunk.com. These crowd-sourced searches can be terribly helpful for common needs or for inspiring ideas for your own searches against your data. 

Tips & Tricks

We will attempt to save Illinois specific tips and tricks to our Microsoft Teams space. Join us at https://go.illinois.edu/splunk-teams.