Splunk, the data analytics company, is actively expanding its observability platform through a series of strategic acquisitions. Following the recent additions of Plumbr and Rigor, Splunk has now announced the acquisition of Flowmill, a network observability startup located in Palo Alto, California. Flowmill specializes in identifying network performance bottlenecks within cloud environments and providing traffic measurement by service, enabling users to effectively manage expenses.

Similar to many companies in the industry, Flowmill leverages eBPF – a recent advancement in the Linux kernel that allows for the execution of isolated code within the kernel itself without requiring modifications or the loading of modules. This feature makes it particularly well-suited for application monitoring.

“Observability solutions are quickly becoming more advanced and are empowering organizations to fundamentally change how they approach infrastructure and application monitoring. Flowmill’s cutting-edge network performance monitoring (NPM) solution delivers real-time insights into network activity and performance for cloud-based applications, utilizing extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) technologies,” stated Tim Tully, Splunk’s Chief Technology Officer. “We are pleased to integrate Flowmill’s innovative NPM technology into our Observability Suite, as Splunk continues to provide leading observability features to its customer base.”

While Splunk has completed substantial acquisitions, such as the $1.05 billion purchase of SignalFx, the company is developing its observability platform by acquiring smaller companies with highly specialized functionalities. Although Splunk possesses the resources to develop these features internally, it evidently recognizes the need for rapid advancement to establish a strong position in this expanding market as businesses seek updated observability tools during their technology modernization efforts.

“Flowmill’s methodology for creating systems that support comprehensive, real-time, high-cardinality data intake and analysis is consistent with Splunk’s vision for observability,” explained Flowmill CEO Jonathan Perry. “We are excited to become part of Splunk and introduce eBPF and next-generation NPM to the Splunk Observability Suite.”

The financial details of the acquisition were not revealed, however Flowmill had previously secured funding from Amplify, Felicis Ventures, WestWave Capital, and UpWest.