Senior DevOps Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Offers certain log filtering capabilities and we can vet what we push into our database
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is quite scalable and this is one of its advantages."
  • "There is an index issue in which the data starts to crash as it increases."

What is our primary use case?

While the solution is slated for making logging positions more centralized, at present we are gearing through it. A fully-fledged deployment of alignments is not yet in place.

We have adjusted the logs into the spec for a couple of our applications.

What is most valuable?

We consider all of the features to be valuable. With respect to 12B Kibana, all of the components fit in very well. Logsearch gives us certain log filtering capabilities and we can vet what we push into our database. This allows us only to log and ship limited items. Essentially, Logsearch plays a big role although not the most important one. 

What needs improvement?

The solution itself needs improvement. There is an index issue in which the data starts to crash as it increases.

This leads to an impact on the solution's stability.

The index and part of the solution's stage have weak points.

In the next release, I would like to see better plugins when integrating with, say, Microsoft Teams.

The Kibana dashboard is quite user-friendly and we have had no issues involving our technical team. However, some technical knowledge is required, especially if one wishes to create dashboards and as it relates to index management.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been Vusing ELK Elasticsearch for plus or minus two years.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

ELK Elasticsearch is definitely a stable solution. It is the spec that surprises most of the other logging solutions in the market.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is quite scalable and this is one of its advantages. We are trying to add or plug on to Elasticsearch at present.

How are customer service and support?

We have been open to solutions and haven't really had a need to rely on technical support. We've relied mostly on support forums.

This said, I would rate the support well, as we initially interacted with the support team and made use of Google.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup had a bit of a learning curve for us while we acclimated ourselves to the use of the solution. However, after a while, it became quite easy. 

I would not say there was much complexity even at the outset, as we have an understanding of how to troubleshoot and do the installation.

There is more than enough documentation of the solution online. It is useful and you can find what you're looking for. There are also forums that can be of assistance. 

What other advice do I have?

While I cannot say for sure, as our organization is structured so that we work in silos with everyone looking after his own infrastructure, I would estimate that we have approximately 200 employees making use of the solution.

My advice to others who are considering implementing the solution is that they first make a plan to figure out how they wish to cluster the solution and the amount of data that must be ingested. Much planning would be involved. It would be wise to start with the open-source solution, which comes with many advantages, and to move on to the Enterprise version if there should be a need for dedicated support. 

I cannot posit whether management will wish to take this route, although this is definitely worth considering, as we are talking about a fully robust infinite solution across the board. 

I rate ELK Elasticsearch an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Head of Technology Operations at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Real User
Open-source with good community support but number of search queries is limited
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the out of the box Kibana."
  • "I would like to be able to do correlations between multiple indexes."

What is our primary use case?

I run the function to review the usage for the team and for the organization itself.

We use this product internally and then some of our business relationships with the other businesses that we have, they get their data from our data. It's more for collaborative data reporting that we have with them.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the out of the box Kibana. You plug it in and start the basic analysis on the data out of the box. This also gives a quick way to check the data and the models to figure out what fits the needs.

What needs improvement?

There are a few things that did not work for us. 

When doing a search in a bigger setup, with a huge amount of data where there are several things coming in, it has to be on top of the index that we search. 

There could be a way to do a more distributed kind of search. For example, if I have multiple indexes across my applications and if I want to do a correlation between the searches, it is very difficult. From a usage perspective, this is the primary challenge.

I would like to be able to do correlations between multiple indexes. There is a limit on the number of indexes that I can query or do. I can do an all-index search, but it's not theoretically okay on practical terms we cannot do that.

In the next release, I would like to have a correlation between multiple indexes and to be able to save the memory to the disk once we have built the index and it's running.

Once the system is up, it will start building that in memory.

We need to be able to distribute it across or save it to have a faster load time.

We don't make many changes to the data that we are creating, but we would like archived reports and to be able to retrieve those reports to see what is going on. That would be helpful.

Also, if you provide a customer with a report or some archived queries, that the customer is looking at when they are creating, at first it will be slow while putting up their data or subsequently doing it. I want it to be up and running efficiently. 

If the memory could be saved and put back into memory as it is, then starts working it would reduce the load time then it will be more efficient from a cost perspective and it will optimize resource usage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been familiar with this product for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

ELK Elasticsearch is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable, but there are some limitations.

If you are scaling a bit too quickly, you tend to break the applications into different indexes. 

The limitations come in when getting the correlation between the applications or the logs.

It is difficult to get the correlations once the indexes have been split.

How are customer service and technical support?

We are using the open-source version, that is installed on-premises.

We have not worried about technical support, but the community is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before ELK, we used another solution for internal usage, and also, we used Splunk for different use cases in a different organization altogether.

It wasn't a switch per se, it was a different organization with a different use case.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple, not too difficult. 

Getting the index, doing your models, and putting the data in, correctly, is done more on a trial and error basis. You have to start early and plan it well to get it right.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are using the open-source version. 

We are not looking into the subscription because it's on-premises in-house.

What other advice do I have?

For anyone who is looking into implementing this solution, the only tip is to get your models for the type of actual use that you are looking at upfront in order to have a good run.

I would rate ELK Elasticsearch a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Elastic Search
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it_user1415322 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at sectecs
Consultant
Stable with reasonable technical support, but it should be easier to use
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a stable solution and we have not had any issues."
  • "It should be easier to use. It has been getting better because many functions are pre-defined, but it still needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

I am using it to get some hands-on experience and learn the product by searching, building use cases, test cases, dashboards, and visualizations.

With hands-on experience, you learn more about the product and how it works.

What needs improvement?

It should be easier to use. It has been getting better because many functions are pre-defined, but it still needs improvement.

If you have a large enterprise environment, it is costing a lot of money and it's not a full-blown SIEM. It has SIEM features but a lot is missing. You need to involve other products to make a SIEM out of it.

Some of the other products needed were Apache, Kafka, and ticket tools. It was custom made and not what I had expected in the end.

I would like to see them get closer to a full-blown orchestrated SIEM, and create predefined modules to bring you to using it as a SIEM faster, and on the fly instead of having to tweak the Grok filter for weeks.

I would like to see more pre-defined modules.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Elasticsearch for two weeks.

We are not using the latest version, but not an old version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution and we have not had any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have contacted technical support, once or twice. The experience was okay.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was okay, not as easy as Splunk but it was manageable.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing model is questionable and needs to be addressed because when you would like to have the security they charge per machine. If you are building any cluster and you are paying €6,000 per machine, that is expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I think that Elasticsearch is a good product and cheaper than Splunk.

What other advice do I have?

I like this solution, but it has too much hands-on time required tweaking to get it up and running.

I have no plans to continue using this product. Currently, I am focused on SIEMonster because I signed a partnership and I would like to sell a total product. It doesn't make sense to spread across multiple products. 

I would like to earn money out of it, so I'm focusing currently on SIEMonster.

I think that Elasticsearch is a good product and cheaper than Splunk.

When I check Gartner, I don't see mention of Elasticsearch, it seems they need to make some improvements.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
System Administrator and DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Has a good UI with good performance although deployment requires multiple applications
Pros and Cons
  • "The UI is very nice, and performance wise it's quite good too."
  • "The different applications need to be individually deployed."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case of this solution is for monitoring our logs and infrastructure. We are customers of ELK and I'm a system administrator. 

What is most valuable?

A positive feature of ELK is that it directly interacts with Elasticsearch. The UI is very nice, and performance wise it's quite good too. A key feature is that this is a reasonably priced monitoring solution.

What needs improvement?

We run this solution on multiple servers. ELK has three lanes which comprise a single package made up of Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana. To my mind, this is not efficient because we have to individually deploy the different applications. In contrast, we're able to deploy Splunk with a singe application. Implementing the dashboards is also quite difficult. With Splunk and Nagios it's much easier to directly interact with Elasticsearch. I'd like to see some additional features in the front end which currently make it a bit difficult to implement and it should be simplified.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for six months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution, we have eight to 10 users. We had initially planned to expand use of ELK because of its cheap price and the services that are included, but given the difficulty with implementation we've decided to go with Nagios instead. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support people are very knowledgeable but the response time is quite slow which is not very good. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of ELK is more difficult than the setup of other monitoring applications. I was able to carry out the deployment alone. 

What other advice do I have?

For anyone looking to implement a monitoring product with almost no cost or at a cheaper price, I would suggest the ELK stack. However, it does require a high skill set because of the difficulty with implementation. 

I would rate this solution a six out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sudeera Mudugamuwa - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
Reliable, open-source, with good community support, and easy to install
Pros and Cons
  • "Elasticsearch includes a graphical user interface (GUI) called Kibana. The GUI features are extremely beneficial to us."
  • "Improving machine learning capabilities would be beneficial."

What is our primary use case?

We use ELK Elasticsearch for storing application data logs.

What is most valuable?

Elasticsearch includes a graphical user interface (GUI) called Kibana. The GUI features are extremely beneficial to us.

What needs improvement?

Elasticsearch includes mechanisms for ingesting data into the cluster. So it would be great if those mechanisms could be simplified.

Improving machine learning capabilities would be beneficial.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with ELK Elasticsearch for four years.

We are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have no issues with the stability of ELK Elasticsearch, it's quite reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

ELK Elasticsearch is a scalable product

This solution is used by five to ten people in our organization.

ELK Elasticsearch is used on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

We have not contacted technical support.

We had a couple of issues that we were able to resolve by looking up the public information that is available on the internet.

There is a lot of community support for this solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and quite simple.

The installation took between six and eight hours to complete.

There is no maintenance required other than regular updates.

What about the implementation team?

We completed the implementation internally.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Although the ELK Elasticsearch software is open-source, we buy the hardware.

What other advice do I have?

The distributed installation is the way to go.

I would rate ELK Elasticsearch a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT Infrastructure Analyst at AG Group
Real User
Powerful, graphical, good customer support and full featured
Pros and Cons
  • "You have dashboards, it is visual, there are maps, you can create canvases. It's more visual than anything that I've ever used."
  • "I have not been using the solution for many years to know exactly the improvements needed. However, they could simplify how the YML files have to be structured properly."

What is our primary use case?

I am using this product for a SIM solution.

What is most valuable?

Their anomaly detection engine is really good for example, compared to SolarWinds. You can ingest different pipelines. You have dashboards, it is visual, there are maps, you can create canvases. It's more visual than anything that I've ever used.

What needs improvement?

I have not been using the solution for many years to know exactly the improvements needed. However, they could simplify how the YML files have to be structured properly. If you want to ingest certain logs, you need to edit the YML file and connect it to your modules to start ingesting and parsing the end-user logs. Doing this is sometimes difficult and could be streamlined.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for approximately three months.

How are customer service and technical support?

The customer service is very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used SolarWinds in the past.

What other advice do I have?

The solution has a lot of features. They have machine learning jobs they can implement, I'm not there yet, but I can use anomaly detection to see there are various processes that can find users that aren't supposed to log onto certain machines. All of these features are visual and graphical. I can show it as a bar chart, a pie chart, I can Instagram, or I can split chart. The power to see everything on the front end is so much more powerful.

I rate ELK Elasticsearch a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user963378 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Analyst at S7
Real User
Provides enterprise landscape support for different areas of the company
Pros and Cons
  • "We had many reasons to implement Elasticsearch for search term solutions. Elasticsearch products provide enterprise landscape support for different areas of the company."
  • "We see the need for some improvements with Elasticsearch. We would like the Elasticsearch package to include training lessons for our staff."

What is our primary use case?

In my project, Elasticsearch is used to query terms for search and to provide data boards for our project team.

How has it helped my organization?

We have some important IT systems which provide support for our business processes. Money is a big issue. If something happens to the IT systems, we lose some money. 

We built Elasticsearch solutions to help us to search more quickly. After that, we can calculate how much money we can save by implementing Elasticsearch as a solution.

What is most valuable?

We had many reasons to implement Elasticsearch for search term solutions. Elasticsearch products provide enterprise landscape support for different areas of the company.

What needs improvement?

Elasticsearch is useful for different business processes, but there are some problems. We discuss these problems with the vendor and with our in-house team. We see the need for some improvements with Elasticsearch. 

We would like the Elasticsearch package to include training lessons for our staff.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Elasticsearch is stable. We have a normal relationship with the vendor and we have enough support.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Elasticsearch is very scalable. This was one of the most important points of our decision. We use Elasticsearch with about 1000 users. Now have two sets of solutions:

  • One set works with the dashboard from the project team's site.
  • A second set works with the enterprise department involved with two roles. 

As for the staff, we have an infrastructure team dedicated to Search. I can't answer quickly how many people we use for that. For maintenance, we employ about three to five experts.

We are planning to increase our Elasticsearch usage. We have the plan because some Elasticsearch systems integrate with other products and we must grow.

How are customer service and technical support?

If we discuss technical support from the vendor, it's the first line of support and we don't need very quick response times in the first support line. 

If we discuss the second line of support, it must be conducted very quickly. About technical support from the vendor, it's not fast. It's normal.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously provided some activities with Splunk solutions. My colleague in another department also used Splunk.

How was the initial setup?

We did not have difficult trouble installing and configuring Elasticsearch. The setup is straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation depends on what part of the solution. In some areas and for some Elasticsearch installation tasks, we wanted third-party consultation support.

What was our ROI?

We don't integrate Elasticsearch on enough systems to complete the estimate of ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

For the next project, we might buy the license, but we don't use it now. I don't know exactly what the license fee for Elasticsearch is currently.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

This is a difficult question because we had a specific reason for choosing Elasticsearch. Different solutions provide different benefits. We compare these and choose one solution over another. 

Overall, it depends on the manufacturers. We compared Elasticsearch with other products like Riverbed, for example.

What other advice do I have?

In general, we have many advantages from the features of Elasticsearch, but there are questions mostly about money, not about technical features, that are of concern.

I would rate Elasticsearch eight/nine out of ten. We have enough possibilities and features with Elasticsearch for our business requirements.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Works at Sincrobox SAC
User
Simple solution that provides valuable analytics
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature for us is the analytics that we can configure and view using Kibana."
  • "This product could be improved with additional security, and the addition of support for machine learning devices."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for this solution is to operate an integration platform for a warehouse management system.

How has it helped my organization?

This has improved our organization because we articulated Kubernetes, Docker, and GitHub with amazing simplicity in the scaling up of our service.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for us is the analytics that we can configure and view using Kibana.

What needs improvement?

This product could be improved with additional security, and the addition of support for machine learning devices.

For how long have I used the solution?

Still implementing.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Elastic Search Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Elastic Search Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.