Use the Portfolio Manager to manage Cloud Flex spending
The Portfolio Manager dashboard in Splunk Cloud Platform lets you view and analyze Cloud Flex spending across product suites, deployments, and licenses, helping you optimize allocation of resources.
The Portfolio Manager dashboard lets you view your Cloud Flex spending across your Splunk product portfolio. Use the Portfolio Manager to view spending by product suite, deployment and license entitlement, and evaluate your allocation of resources to Splunk products.
What is Cloud Flex?
Cloud Flex is a Splunk product that provides a centralized, intuitive platform to manage and monitor your cross-portfolio dollar pool contracts. Its primary purpose is to give customers real-time visibility into their contract status, product entitlements, spending, and usage. This enables more informed decision-making and efficient portfolio management.
Requirements
To access and view the Portfolio Manager dashboard:
- Your role must have the pmc_read capability.
- You must have an active Splunk Cloud Flex contract.
Supported Splunk product licenses
The Portfolio Manager supports Splunk product licenses for the following product suites:
- Platform
- Security
- Observability
Access the Portfolio Manager dashboard
To access the Portfolio Manager dashboard:
- In Splunk Web, select Apps, then select Portfolio Manager.
- Select Home to open the Cloud Flex overview dashboard.
Review the Cloud Flex Overview dashboard
The Cloud Flex overview dashboard provides a high-level summary of your spending across your Splunk product portfolio. This dashboard helps you evaluate your allocation of funds to each Splunk product suite, deployment, and product.
The dashboard displays the following information:
| Panel | Description |
|---|---|
| Last updated | A timestamp indicating when the data was last refreshed. |
| Account and Contract Details | Your account name, contract start date, and end date. |
| Overall Spending | A summary of your total spending. |
| Spending by Category | A breakdown of your overall spending across Platform, Security, and Observability product suites. |
| Sankey View | This interactive chart illustrates the flow of funds, showing spending allocations across product suites, deployments, and individual products. |
| Table View | A detailed breakdown of costs by product license and stack, including total allocation and entitlement units for each product license. |
| Cost Over Time | This graph shows your spending over a selected time range, broken down by product suite (Platform, Security, and Observability), allowing you to identify trends and shifts in spending. |
Review the license usage dashboards
The License usage dashboards show detailed metrics for your license entitlements and usage across your Splunk portfolio, including Splunk Cloud Platform deployments and Observability instances. This functionality can help you identify areas of over- or under-utilization and help you optimize your license expenditures to maximize the value of your Splunk investment.
The License usage dashboard is organized into tabs according to product suite:
Platform license usage
The Platform licenses tab shows license usage information for Splunk Platform products, typically managed under a specific deployment. This includes Splunk Cloud Platform, Dynamic Data Active Archive (DDAA), Dynamic Data Active Searchable (DDAS), Federated Search, and so on. For each product, you can view the license type, entitlement, how usage is measured, the actual usage units, and the percentage of entitlement used.
Observability license usage
The Licenses on Observability tab provides detailed metrics for your Observability instances. This includes premium apps like IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), as well as general Observability products, including Splunk APM, RUM, Synthetic, On-Call, and more.
Security license usage
The Licenses on Security tab provides details on your security-related product licenses. This includes premium apps like Enterprise Security and other security solutions.
Insights and Recommendations
To effectively manage your Splunk Cloud Flex investment using the Portfolio Manager dashboards:
- Monitor Regularly: Check the Cloud Flex overview dashboard frequently to stay informed about your overall spending and contract status.
- Analyze Spending Patterns: Use the detailed spending visualizations, including the Sankey and Table views and Cost Over Time chart to identify trends and understand how funds are allocated across different product suites and deployments.
- Optimize License Utilization: Review the license usage data for each product across Platform, Observability, and Security. Evaluate if your current entitlements align with actual needs or if there are opportunities to reallocate resources. To get more detailed information on license usage across your deployment, monitor the license usage dashboards in the Cloud Monitoring Console (CMC). See Use the license usage dashboards.
- Identify Key Metrics: Pay close attention to the "License usage metric" column to understand how each product's usage is calculated, for example "Peak from last 30 days," "Total usage as of today," "Total count as of day". This context is crucial for interpreting the usage percentages accurately.
- Plan for Future Needs: Use historical spending and usage data to inform future budgeting and resource allocation decisions. For instance, if certain Observability metrics are consistently high, it might indicate growing needs in that area.
- Engage Your Account Representative: For any contract adjustments, upsizing, or reallocation of spend resources, always consult with your Splunk account representative.