Cisco Execs Vow Continued Splunk Innovation And Integration Without Disruption

At Splunk .conf24, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins and Go-to-Market President Gary Steele spoke to Splunk customers about the benefits of integrating the companies’ security and observability products and highlighted the opportunities those combinations will create for partners.

Cisco Systems and Splunk executives are putting on a full-court press at Splunk .conf24 this week to tout the benefits for customers and the opportunities for partners that integration between the Splunk and Cisco product portfolios will create—and will do so without interfering with Splunk’s development road map and innovation.

At the .conf24 event in Las Vegas, the first since Cisco completed its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk in March, top executives and channel chiefs from Cisco and Splunk offered updates on the integration efforts so far between the two companies’ observability and security product lines.

And while company executives continued to maintain that the Splunk and Cisco partner programs will remain separate for at least the near future, Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins, Cisco Channel Chief Rodney Clark and other executives urged the hundreds of Splunk partners attending .conf24 to expand their product lines to include complementary Cisco products and even consider joining Cisco’s partner program.

The message seems to be resonating with partners.

TekStream, an Atlanta-based solution provider, has been a Splunk partner for nearly 10 years and develops solutions around just about the entire Splunk product portfolio. But the company also became a Cisco partner about a year ago, building out its Cisco practice and working with its observability as-a-service offerings.

“I think this has tremendous upside for partners who have Splunk expertise,” said Matt Clemmons, managing director of the Splunk business unit, in an interview with CRN.

Robbins joined Gary Steele (pictured), Splunk general manager and president of Cisco’s go-to-market (and Splunk CEO before the acquisition) on stage multiple times Tuesday, including addressing partners during the Partner Summit portion of the .conf24 event and joining Steele during the main keynote at the end of the day.

In his own remarks at the Partner Summit, in his keynote and during a press conference Tuesday, Steele—as he has since the acquisition—vowed that Cisco’s acquisition will not disrupt or slow Splunk’s innovation and development work. (As he likewise emphasized in an interview with CRN just prior to .conf24.)

“We are continuing on this path of innovation, and we are going to continue to deliver on our road map,” Steele said of Splunk’s development plans as outlined to customers and partners. “So I just want to reassure you—and want you to hold us accountable—that we are going to continue on this path of strong innovation that delivers great technology.”

Tom Casey, Splunk senior vice president and general manager, products and technology, noted during the Partner Summit that more than 50 percent of the planned development road map was elevated in priority through partner feedback.

Robbins noted that a great deal of integration work has already been done, including linking Cisco XDR with the Splunk Enterprise Security platform, and Splunk’s Observability Cloud with Cisco AppDynamics and other Cisco observability offerings—the latter unveiled at last week’s Cisco Live event.

Following the acquisition, in fact, development of AppDynamics and other Cisco observability products was moved into Splunk, which is a Cisco business unit managed by Steele.

Both executives emphasized how partners will benefit.

“The ultimate value that we see from the integrated innovation … I think the Splunk partner community has a real advantage in delivering all that because they have been working with the Splunk Enterprise Platform, and we’re basically going to provide more integrations for that platform from the Cisco portfolio,” Robbins said in response to a question from CRN during the press conference.

And he added that Cisco networks, security products and other systems will become additional data sources for the Splunk products.

Several times during the day Robbins and Steele noted that rather than use the acquisition as an opportunity to cut costs, Cisco is spending more on research and development. That, Steele said during the press conference, is providing the resources to continue the Splunk development road map even as it works to integrate Splunk and Cisco products.

Robbins noted that the continued spending, rather than cutting costs “has not been received well” in some parts of the investment community. “When you spend $28 billion [for an acquisition] I believe you should be sure you’re actually delivering on the strategic vision that you believed was possible, as opposed to cutting [costs] immediately.”

Splunk and Cisco executives said they are encouraging partners that work just with Splunk or Cisco today to consider expanding their product portfolios, become trained and certified on both vendors’ products, and even join both partner programs.

“We are totally aligned with the Cisco security product line, and I would encourage all of you to get to know more about the Cisco products,” Steele said. “I think there's more financial opportunity for all of you as we go to customers and think about how we really improve their security posture.”

Gretchen O’Hara, Splunk vice president of worldwide partners and alliances, said that partners now play some type of role in 90 percent of Splunk’s business, up from 70 percent one year earlier.

Rodney Clark, Cisco senior vice president of partnerships and small and medium business, told Partner Summit attendees that Cisco has created a pilot program for Cisco partners to work with Splunk to create new opportunities around its products. And he said that about 75 percent of Splunk partners already work with Cisco.

“It’s on us to make this union as seamless as possible,” he said.