Real-time has hit the big time in the data-analytics market for good reason. As businesses go digital, responding to customers before the next guy can make or break a sale. Security is also becoming more time sensitive as novel threats demand that security pros analyze and defend against them ASAP.

Splunk Inc.’s data-analytics platform helps intercept the parade of foreign security threats stampeding from the dark side, according to Alex Tabares (pictured, left), director of threat intelligence at Carnival Corp.

“I get to see everything come in — real time,” Tabares said. “I’m able to quickly pinpoint any action I need to take, send it to my team, and have them remediate right away.”

Splunk’s use of application program interfaces converges data from different silos with speed for instant notification. Splunk’s tight integration of ecosystem partners, as well as its cloud services, enable not only near-real-time alerts, but fast development of all sorts of solutions for Carnival’s entire business.

Tabares and Sheldon Whyte (pictured, right), enterprise architect at Carnival Cruise Line, a division of Carnival Corp., spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Splunk .conf18 event in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. They discussed how real-time data allows Carnival to run a tighter operation on and off shore. (* Disclosure below.)

APIs are ecosystem architect’s best friend

The enterprise architect’s job has become more complicated thanks to the pile up of internal and third-party elements, according to Whyte. “The evolution is not so much enterprise architect as it is ecosystem architect,” he said. “Now you have these massively distributed systems.”

Pulling those systems — and their data — together is critical to the snap-decision making needed to compete in modern digital business. Splunk’s Amazon Web Services Inc. S3 object storage API integration can speed things up. “You’re removing storage from the critical path, and now that opens up a different scale of possibilities and internal opportunities,” Whyte stated.

Carnival also relies on cloud to send info quickly from one place to another. “One of our early cloud forays was in replicating guest activity onboard the ship, so we know if somebody buys a margarita off the coast of Australia, we know it five seconds later, and we can act upon that data,” Whyte concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Splunk .conf18 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Splunk .conf18. Neither Splunk Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE