As a solutions engineer, I always handle the complex challenge of collecting IT and security data. The variety of modern ephemeral systems increases the complexity of collection requirements. Cloud, PCF, and Kubernetes emit metrics, logs, and traces through methodologies like Cloud Foundry’s Nozzle, Prometheus scrapers, and OpenTelemetry collectors. I often find all of these deployed in parallel in a single enterprise environment to meet the evolving needs of IT Ops or SecOps.

Getting data collected and delivered to all the required systems creates significant operational complexities requiring translation from one format to another before delivery to their respective system of analysis. Collecting and delivering data to required systems often involves translating from one format to another, which can be complex and operationally challenging. For example, a recent OTel Prometheus interop survey found deployment challenges with properly configuring resource attributes and translation between Prometheus and OTel.

Solutions to these data collection problems come in off-the-shelf commercial variants, DIY systems, agent-based systems, and open source. Yet with all the unique combinations and variety, two common themes remain. These different systems generate mountains of valuable data requiring massive scale. Secondly, the collection systems are brittle and complex, requiring heavy investments of time to maintain stability as data volumes rapidly grow.

This is where Cribl Stream’s Universal Receiver shines. Let’s dive into how this powerful tool simplifies data integration and unlocks the true potential of your data.

Centralized Ingestion: The Power of One

Universal Receiver acts as a central hub, effortlessly ingesting data from a vast array of sources such as applications, logs, security tools, you name it. This eliminates the need for complex configurations and custom scripting for each data source.

Cribl Stream’s flexibility makes it a perfect fit, whether you’re dealing with traditional on-premises systems or modern cloud-based deployments. Cribl Stream can receive continuous data input from various sources, including Syslog, Open Telemetry (OTel), Model Driven Telemetry (MDT), Kinesis, Kafka, TCP JSON, etc. This eliminates the need for separate collection systems for each data type reducing the maintenance and scaling challenges.

Speaking Every Data Language

Operating as a universal receiver requires Cribl Stream to understand the endless data types used in Security and IT systems. It supports hundreds of out-of-the-box protocols and parsers, meaning it can understand the language your data speaks – Syslog, key value pairs, JSON, CEF, OTel Spans, you name it (Check out this blog: OTel Spans and Metrics). No more wrestling with data normalization or struggling to decipher cryptic formats. The Universal Receiver translates everything into a common format making your data truly accessible.

Streamlining for Scalability

The beauty of Cribl Stream’s architecture is its focus on efficiency. The Universal Receiver pre-processes data at the edge, filtering out unnecessary information before sending it onward. This reduces bandwidth consumption and ensures your data pipelines aren’t overloaded by irrelevant data. This is especially crucial in cloud environments where costs can quickly balloon. Check out this blog for a deeper dive into Cribl Stream’s scalability in the cloud

Unlocking the Potential of Your Data

By eliminating data silos and centralizing ingestion, Cribl Stream’s Universal Receiver empowers you to:

• Reduce Overhead: Collect more data with less complexity and maintenance
• Consistent Application Visibility: Control metrics cost and consistency
• Simplify security analytics: Streamline threat detection and investigation with readily available, normalized data.
• Fuel better decision making: Correlate data from diverse sources to uncover hidden insights and make informed decisions.

The Universal Receiver is a game-changer for data integration. It streamlines processes, reduces complexity, and empowers you to harness the true potential of your data. Are you ready to break free from data silos and unlock the power of Cribl Stream? Click here to get started.

Cribl, the Data Engine for IT and Security, empowers organizations to transform their data strategy. Customers use Cribl’s suite of products to collect, process, route, and analyze all IT and security data, delivering the flexibility, choice, and control required to adapt to their ever-changing needs.

We offer free training, certifications, and a free tier across our products. Our community Slack features Cribl engineers, partners, and customers who can answer your questions as you get started and continue to build and evolve. We also offer a variety of hands-on Sandboxes for those interested in how companies globally leverage our products for their data challenges.