Splunk has been awarded a contract by Lockheed Martin to support its F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter (JSF) programme.
Under the contract, the company will provide Splunk Enterprise to monitor and analyse IT systems and network behaviour for the autonomic logistics information system (ALIS), which provides F-35 operators with the ability to plan ahead, maintain, and sustain the jet’s systems over its service life.
Splunk global public sector vice-president Bill Cull said: "F-35 aircraft are flying data centres that generate a massive amount of information on each flight.
"The IT systems and applications supporting this programme are essential, and Splunk Enterprise’s role is to support daily ALIS operations."
Lockheed will initially use Splunk Enterprise in 25 different operating environments for IT operations and application delivery, analysing machine data from the systems and networks supporting the ALIS infrastructure to help ensure applications are operating at peak performance.
Splunk Enterprise is an online platform for collection of any machine data from any source including physical, virtual and cloud environments, and making it usable and valuable across the organisation.
The platform enables users to search, monitor and analyse data from one place in real-time, in addition to troubleshooting problems and monitoring end- to-end infrastructure to avoid service degradation or outages.
The ALIS is claimed to be the off-board IT backbone of the F-35 programme. It has capabilities to capture and analyse the fleet’s overall readiness in the US Military branches and in several other countries using the fifth-generation aircraft.
Three variants of the F-35 are being developed. The aircraft is designed to conduct an array of ground attack, reconnaissance and air defence missions with stealth capability.
The variants include a conventional take-off and landing aircraft for the US and allied air forces, a short take-off and landing fighter for the US Marine Corps and the Royal Navy, as well as a carrier version for the US Navy.
