Streaming CloudWatch Logs to Splunk for Near Real-Time Analysis and Visualization

When it comes to monitoring and analyzing log data from cloud-based services, a reliable and efficient solution is crucial. In this blog post, we will explore how to stream AWS CloudWatch logs to Splunk using an AWS Lambda blueprint. This approach provides near real-time analysis and visualization of log data, enabling you to gain enhanced critical security and operational insights into your AWS infrastructure and applications.

Before diving into the step-by-step walkthrough, it's essential to understand the push model for ingesting data into Splunk. Unlike pull models, which rely on dedicated pollers to manage and orchestrate data collection, the push model offers several benefits. For instance, it allows you to stream data in real-time, making it particularly suitable for microservice architectures and event-driven computing like AWS Lambda.

One example of pushing data is via an AWS Lambda function, which can be used to stream events over HTTPS to Splunk's HTTP Event Collector (HEC). Another example is the widely popular Splunk Add-on for AWS, which reliably collects data from various AWS services.

Splunk supports multiple ways to ingest data, including monitoring local files or streaming wire data, pulling data from remote 3rd-party APIs, and receiving data over syslog, tcp/udp, or http. In this blog post, we will focus on streaming VPC Flow logs stored in CloudWatch Logs using an AWS Lambda blueprint.

First, let's start with a note on pull vs push ingestion methods. Pull methods rely on dedicated pollers to manage and orchestrate data collection, whereas push methods involve pushing data from the source to Splunk. In this example, we will use a push method to stream VPC Flow logs stored in CloudWatch Logs.

VPC Flow logs capture information about all IP traffic going to and from network interfaces, making them instrumental for security analysis and troubleshooting. We are interested in streaming these VPC Flow logs stored in CloudWatch Logs. To do this, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of how to use an AWS Lambda blueprint to stream AWS CloudWatch Logs via AWS Lambda and into Splunk.

At AWS re:Invent 2016, Splunk released several AWS Lambda blueprints to help you stream logs, events, and alerts from more than 15 AWS services into Splunk. These blueprints provide a quick and easy way to integrate your AWS infrastructure with Splunk for enhanced critical security and operational insights.

By following the instructions outlined in this blog post, you can stream VPC Flow logs stored in CloudWatch Logs to Splunk using an AWS Lambda blueprint. This approach provides near real-time analysis and visualization of log data, enabling you to gain enhanced critical security and operational insights into your AWS infrastructure and applications.

To get started, simply rename your resources such as Lambda functions differently to match your use case. Then, follow the step-by-step walkthrough outlined in this blog post to stream VPC Flow logs stored in CloudWatch Logs to Splunk using an AWS Lambda blueprint.

Remember that this mechanism applies to any logs stored in CloudWatch Logs, not just VPC Flow logs. With this approach, you can easily integrate your AWS infrastructure with Splunk for enhanced critical security and operational insights.

Cloudwatch to splunk