Word in Silicon Valley is that Splunk, which has filed its S-1, may be valued at $1.2 billion says SiliconAngle founder and CEO John Furrier. The S-1 is a sign that a company will soon file for an IPO. You can find the paperwork here.

Splunk has been rumored to be planning an IPO since last month. Earlier this week it launched a new version of its product, which makes it easier to search and data mine machine data such as log files for insights. The company refers to this as “operational intelligence.”

From what we’ve been hearing, Splunk is really killing it, but is now facing competition from a range of companies including Loggly (founded by former Splunk employees), Nodeable and LogLogic.

But Splunk may have one big advantage in its existing relationships with system integrators. Lately we’ve been hearing more lately about Splunk being used for big data analytics applications such as more traditional BI. Splunk is certainly embracing this idea with the new version, and executives have been talking up the way it can be used much like you’d use other NoSQL databases.

That’s a big opportunity for consultants who can help companies leverage Splunk for new applications. And it’s a big advantage for Splunk having those consultants in their corner.