Five years ago we came up with a different way to manage complex IT environments by applying search to the underlying data generated by applications, servers and network devices. Traditionally this data has been sampled, filtered, reduced and forgotten leaving us humans lost when we need to figure out what's really going on. Our big "aha" was to embrace not ignore all this IT data. Splunk collects and indexes in real-time any logs, messages, events, configurations and changes across your IT environment. Just like Google allows you to surf the Web, Splunk lets you surf your IT infrastructure to troubleshoot problems, investigate security incidents and report on compliance controls. The ability to ask any question of your IT environment and get immediate answers provides the transparency we need to keep up with dynamic IT infrastructures and prepare for new technologies like virtualization, network access controls and cloud computing. I enjoy thinking about the intersection of humans and complex IT infrastructures. If you find any of my ramblings thought provoking let me know. My email is thebaum at splunk dot com.