Chris Kaye (a.k.a. ITWhisperer) is a Solution Design Professional at BT and joined the Splunk community in August 2020, after two years of learning Splunk. You may recognize him from the Splunk Answers karma leaderboard, as he consistently ranks at the top. So, what's the story behind the username 'ITWhisperer'? Chris says it's a bit of a private joke because oftentimes when people call upon him for help with a problem they're ready to give up on, the issue magically "fixes itself" before he has the chance to solve it.
We asked Chris to answer a few questions and share some of his work, so we could share his story with you. Read on to get to know what makes ITWhisperer tick 😄.
How has Splunk positively impacted your career?
"I am still just a user of Splunk, however, Splunk has enabled me to provide insights into how the applications that I am responsible for behave, allowing me to engage with the operations teams and interested parties from the business, to share these insights, and help not only solve incidents but also avoid them, by detecting anomalies before they become issues. This has brought some small measure of praise and recognition for this valuable activity."
Can you tell us about a moment when you were really proud of what you were able to accomplish with Splunk?
"My first dashboard was one of my proudest moments. Prior to using Splunk, I had been trying to develop a dashboard of sorts, using basic scripts and some limited presentation capabilities, to track certain types of transactions flowing (and not flowing) through the system, and it was taking some time to get all the right pieces set up so the data could be collected, analyzed and presented in a timely fashion. Luckily, Splunk came along before it was too late, and the switch to Splunk made it so much easier (once we had got all the connectivity set up), and it didn't take long to get the first dashboard up and running."
Besides something work-related, how has the Splunk community impacted you as a person?
"Involvement with the Splunk community has allowed me to use and develop skills that would not normally be part of my day-to-day work, which I have developed through my other interests and activities. I am, by nature, a shy person, but the community gives me the opportunity to speak up and help others whilst maintaining my anonymity (which, of course, is now blown 🙂), so the fact that I am doing this interview says something about the confidence the community has given me."
— Michelle Schlachta, Community + Content at Splunk
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