Boss of the NOC is a gamified way for you to explore real data and IT scenarios. Use Splunk in a fun, competitive—but pressure-free—environment. Take the opportunity to investigate and solve interesting problems, and win fabulous prizes and awesome Splunk schwag while you’re at it.

1) For the price I spent on Uber I could have bought a Toyota Prius.

During my early days as a Professional Service consultant, I used to travel from one customer site to another, effectively living out of a suitcase. I was in my mid-20’s, and the lifestyle was fun and adventurous — it gave me the freedom to work without being tied to a 9–5 office gig. However, there was one thing that I couldn’t escape no matter how many miles I flew: an overbearingly strict boss. 

My manager was your typical Type-A from New York City with a razor-sharp tone and someone who had never used a pleasantry in his whole life. It was all business all the time, and he demanded the solutions I was building be top-notch. I have to thank him for teaching me an extremely valuable lesson — one that I’d carry throughout the rest of my career making my customers successful. A motto he repeated so many times it’s permanently inked onto my soul: 

“Don’t ever make a dashboard unless it’s interactive!”

Over the last decade, the founders of Arcus Data have supported Global corporations in Energy, Healthcare, Financial, and Retail as well as sensitive government agencies. Because of that experience, Arcus Data recognizes the recurring problem of technologies advancing so rapidly that traditional solution providers cannot keep up. Analytics industry veterans, from SPLK, ESTC, and Deloitte, opened Arcus Data in April 2018, to empower operations to solve some of their most challenging business and technical issues.

During the Holiday Season I was doing what a lot of professionals in my industry do. I was enjoying some well deserved time off, spending time with my family, and closing out one particular task that I despise more than anything: submitting expense reports.

While slogging through hundreds of e-mail receipts, cancelled rides, and surge pricing statements I started to think, “man, I sure do take a lot of Uber rides”. Then a brilliant idea struck me! I should make an Uber Splunk App.

What follows is a three-part series dedicated to showing you how the sausage is made. How to go from a tiny inkling of an idea to a full-fledged use case. Why you should leverage a powerful data visualization tool (like Splunk) for rapid prototyping. Instead of focusing on the technical nuts-and-bolts we’ll explore “big ideas” like design, approach, and how to incorporate user feedback.

Follow these guidelines and your next Splunk App will be more intuitive, tell a more impactful story, and increase the value from your big data solution.