Splunk is assisting the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) IT team prepare to host the final debate in less than two hours from this time of writing, 19 October, 9pm ET.

As the recent Australian census demonstrates, a large online specific-time event requires maximum system uptime and reliable IT infrastructure.

To this end, Splunk announced it is helping ensure UNLV’s Web properties and network infrastructure stay online during an expected spike in traffic, while also helping to monitor and analyse the debate’s associated Web and social media data.

Splunk credits the strength of its platform to its ability to aggregate vast volumes of disparate data from many sources, then allow different people to ask different questions of the same underlying data.

In addition to "regular" transactional, relational data, Splunk easily consumes machine data — server logs, network information and the like, and reference data — ancillary information such as social media activity, all of which combines to give a big picture of what was happening at any given moment in time.

UNLV is a rising national public research university serving 29,000 students. The university has used Splunk Enterprise for several years in IT operations to monitor the efficiency of its IT infrastructure and to help identify potential issues. UNLV’s Network Operations Centre uses Splunk to ensure fast resolutions, system uptime and performance across the university for a more satisfying campus experience.

UNLV first used Splunk to analyse logs from its Learning Management System for troubleshooting. Expanding on this work, UNLV developed an early warning and learning strategy to identify students at risk of poor performance and provide them customised learning materials to assist.