How much scripting knowledge is required to work as a Splunk Administrator and developer?

[sonia_splunk]

Hi Everyone,

This is my 1st question on Forum. I have made up my mind to go for Splunk training.

I am not really good in scripting languages like Perl and Python.

How much is scripting knowledge required to work as Splunk Administrator and developer?

Thanks

Sonia

[sonia1086]

Hi,
I am a non IT person and don’t know any language.
Thought of learning splunk. Can I learn splunk as I do not have any IT background.

Thank in advance

[Richfez · Accepted solution]

Welcome to Splunk!

I can only speak about my own experiences and opinion as it is within my own environment, but I like to think I'm not too much of an oddity and that this probably applies fairly well to most Splunk admins/developers.

To work as a Splunk administrator there is very little (perhaps no) scripting required. That doesn't mean that familiarity with some scripting languages wouldn't be helpful every now and then, just that it's nearly never required. About all I've ever come across is being able to change a variable or two in a file to point to your own server, or to supply a username and password - trivial edits that are usually very well documented. Nothing to worry about.

Of course, if you ARE familiar with Python you will likely find a way to use it while doing Splunk administration, but if you aren't you can be a fine Splunk administrator and no one will probably ever even notice your lack of Python-fu.

From the sound of it I think by "developer" you mean building dashboards and searches, knowledge objects, data models and things like that. To do that it's also unlikely you'll need much if any Python skills. It's about the same as with administering: if you are an expert Python coder you'll find ways to use Python and if you aren't, you won't.

About the only times I've used any scripting language for Splunk - beyond the simple use case mentioned above - was at my own behest because it looked interesting to work on debugging a certain problem on my own while waiting for support to debug it. I thought of it as an opportunity to learn some Python (I have some knowledge of half a dozen scripting languages already).

So, I'd jump in to everything else and not worry about not being particularly adept at Python. Have fun, ask questions if you get stuck, and otherwise just try to enjoy yourself!