All, I wanted to update this thread. Brian was able to work with his team and issue me an extension license for Splunk Lite Free and resolve my other issue. Brian, thanks again! I appreciate you stepping in and taking action. I was really frustrated and it's nice to have Splunk back up and available to my team. I do hope that the Splunk Free licensing is clarified going forward for others who may be in the same shoes I am. Cheers. Chuck. ... View more

Brian, I wanted to provide a follow on this. First, I want to thank you and the others that have stepped in to try and help. I really do appreciate that. Now the bad part, I'm still thoroughly frustrated and and a bit lost by all of the confusion this is causing and can't seem to understand why. A couple of points: 1. On the Splunk Light Trial page, it says that the license is good for 30 days and then it reverts to a 'Perpetual' free license with some reduced functionality. My understanding of perpetual is that is goes on forever and obtaining a continuation license should not be a complex process. 2. The sales team graciously gave me a 30 day Splunk Light Trial license to bide some time while things get sorted out. I installed the license and thought I was good, until I realized that I could not run any searches because I had exceeded the license limit too many times. I exceeded the license limits when my license expired and the allowed amount was 0 for 30+ days. In doing some quick google searches, it seems that a reset license from Splunk is needed to correct that. 3. I called into support and explained the situation and was told politely that a reset license could not be sent for a "Free" install. Not sure what that means since I have a 30 day license installed currently. The solution provided to me was to reinstall Splunk and look to restore conf files and indexes. I'm not sure of the effort involved to do so, but I've got a lot on my plate ... I'm close to throwing in the towel, but keep pushing forward for a few reasons: 1. I love the product and have spent the past year relying on it as part of a development project. My current needs were being satisfied with the 'perpetual free' license of Splunk Light. I had no doubt that I would eventually become a paid license subscriber, but I just didn't need it yet. The product goes way beyond just a logging system and I recognize that I can build into it in so many different directions. Selfishly, I'm better off with it than without it. 2. I think the Splunk team owes the community some clarity on this subject. I'm not alone in trying to understand this. I completely understand that Splunk is a for profit company and invests in the product and needs to charge for value. I am just caught up in the middle of the web pages and documentation saying one thing and the reality I'm experiencing being completely different. I've said all along that my primary goal is to use the product within the terms of use and licensing. I'm not looking to beat the system, steal licenses or misuse the product in any way. I'm just confused ... I'll continue to work with the sales team, but I wanted to update this thread to hopefully gently push the Splunk team to clarify the licensing and somehow spread the word within. Cheers. Chuck. ... View more

Thanks for that reply. I've seen that document and that's what I'm trying to base my request on. In my case, i was operating under the Splunk Light Free license and it expired after 1 year. I called into support to see how to go about renewing the license. They sent me to sales and that's where things fell apart. I'm not sure if there is an unwillingness to allow continued usage of Free, but the website and the documentation says that is allowed. My goal is to stay compliant with the license conformance statement and use the product in accordance with the license. It's not a matter of getting a Free version, it's more a matter that the Free version is suiting my needs during my development cycle and it's not time yet to explore the pay version. If anyone on the Splunk team can give me clear direction on how to request a renewal on an expired Splunk Light Free install I would appreciate it. Cheers. Chuck ... View more

Jerry, thanks for the suggestion. The data is not in a file, but can easily be obtained via a script/powershell. I'll do some searching on how to pull that in. I was hoping that there was another perfmon counter or stat that would easily give me that. Cheers. Chuck. ... View more