Valve deploys Splunk to monitor Steam performance

Could Splunk play a role in the launch should Half-Life 3 ever be released?

Valve, the developer behind the Steam digital distribution platform and games including Half-Life, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, has announced that it will deploy Splunk across its security and IT operations teams.

Valve intends to use Splunk Enterprise for Operational Intelligence to monitor more than 5TB of data generated daily by Steam's 100 million active users across PC, Mac and Linux.

Splunk will allow Valve to monitor network traffic and ensure that the Steam service and Valve's online game servers are always available and secure to allow gamers to play a huge range of titles at any time.

Gamers can also use the Splunk App for Team Fortress 2 to examine data about their playing style in the popular multiplayer shooter.

Naturally, Splunk has welcomed Valve as a high-profile customer. "Splunk is pleased that Valve selected Splunk Enterprise as a strategic technology to support its growing business," said Steve Sommer, chief marketing officer at Splunk.

"We are glad to see customers such as Valve maximise their return on investment from Splunk software by leveraging our software across their organisations.

"Valve IT operations teams reduce downtime and decrease the mean time to resolve issues, while security teams ensure a more secure environment for their customers."

Valve is not the only high-profile company to benefit from deploying Splunk tools. Coca-Cola uses the platform for data-driven insight.