VMblog:  If you were giving an AWS re:Invent attendee a quick overview of the company, what would you say?  How would you describe the company?

Lynne Doherty:  Sumo Logic is the leading AI-driven SaaS log analytics platform that transforms security and performance information into analytics so Dev, Sec and Ops teams can make data-driven decisions that drive businesses forward. In just one platform, we help our customers ensure application reliability, protect against modern threats and gain insights into cloud infrastructures by unifying all application telemetry. We also take an open standard approach to data collection through our OpenTelemetry data collector, simplifying and democratizing data collection.

VMblog: How can attendees of the event find you?  What do you have planned at your booth this year?  What type of things will attendees be able to do at your booth? 

Doherty:  Come by and visit our team at booth #789! In addition to our Sumo swag, we're hosting a social media scavenger hunt with our amazing partner ecosystem and will be showcasing demos of new innovations across observability, security and AI that help DevSecOps teams accelerate troubleshooting through curated workflows for AWS services. To learn more visit: https://www.sumologic.com/aws-reinvent/

VMblog:  Can you double click on your company's technologies?  And talk about the types of problems you solve for an AWS re:Invent attendee.

Doherty:  Every organization across every industry is going through transformation, they are relying on digital and cloud to accelerate their innovation, develop competitive edge and help service their customers better. But it creates complexity for security and operations teams: lack of visibility, control and efficiency, tools that don't work in the cloud, and siloed organizations and data.

We believe that log data in all shapes and sizes - structured, semi-structured, and unstructured - is the single source of truth that reduces that complexity and can help developers, observability and security teams establish common frameworks and drive greater innovation.

Sumo Logic addresses these challenges by collecting and transforming data into actionable insights for developers, IT, and security operations - from a single platform. By consolidating this information into a unified analytics platform, Sumo Logic enables proactive monitoring of applications, rapid detection of security threats, and capturing crucial performance metrics. The strength lies in delivering these functionalities seamlessly from a single cloud-native platform so teams can collaborate efficiently and make data-driven decisions.

VMblog:  While thinking about your company's solutions, can you give readers a few examples of how your offerings are unique?  What are your differentiators?  What sets you apart from the competition?

Doherty:  Users run into three key issues with competitor tools: (1) Ineffective troubleshooting, as most vendors can only run analytics on structured (parsed) log data, giving them less control of their log data, (2) these tools are on-prem or single-tenant, making them difficult to scale-up, and (3) pricing models are complex and based on ingested data volume and retention, which is costly.

At Sumo Logic, we overcome these challenges by delivering both observability and security in one cloud-native, log analytics platform. Our platform runs analytics on structured and unstructured log data, with parse on-write & on-search capabilities, so our customers have more flexibility with their log data in a centralized location. As a cloud-native solutions provider, we also deliver real-time visibility at scale. Even our pricing and data tiering model is unique by offering our customers more flexible options to consume their data and scale their business.

We are making a difference for our customers by bringing logs, metrics, traces, and security solutions together in ONE unified self-managed platform and delivering actionable insights.

VMblog:  AWS re:Invent is typically a great venue for a company to launch a new product or an update to an existing product.  Will your company be announcing anything new?  If so, without asking you to give away too much, can you give us a sneak preview?

Doherty:  We will announce a handful of new solutions and features to our SaaS Log Analytics Platform that are purpose-built for AWS at reInvent this week. These innovations will help users find the root cause of performance, availability, and security issues within minutes to help Dev, Sec, and Ops teams accelerate troubleshooting through curated workflows for AWS services. To learn more about these solutions, or see a demo, stop by our booth!

VMblog:  The keynote stage will be covering a number of big topics, but what big changes or trends does your company see taking shape as we head into 2024?

Doherty:  

AI: More and more organizations will turn to AI tools to deal with large volumes of data as data overload problems persist. With machines increasing their capacity at a high rate, their data output is growing exponentially. It's going to be essential for vendors to be able to manage this unstructured log data. From a security front, AI will become much more important as organizations learn from each other's threats and malicious activity to become better protected. Today, Sumo Logic's SaaS log analytics platform uses AI-driven models to quickly turn mountains of information into insights.

Cloud Transformation: Companies will continue to migrate to cloud from on-prem, because cloud's agility can keep pace with digital transformation and improve the digital experience, where on-prem environments can cause many pain-points for organizations. As a cloud-native platform, we can also scale with our customers to meet the challenges of today's digital world and their various business needs.

Security: Security will continue to be top of mind for companies as threats become more sophisticated with AI and social engineering attacks. Having good cybersecurity hygiene, an active user security awareness program and, most importantly, leveraging a cloud-native SIEM and advanced analytics to detect users' anomalous (and potentially malicious) behaviors to identify indicators of attack against the growing backdrop of false positive alerts. SecOps teams struggle with swivel chair syndrome, so honing in on the threats that matter keeps them efficient.

VMblog:  What are you personally most interested in seeing or learning at AWS re:Invent?

Doherty:  AWS re:Invent is always an opportunity to get a true pulse on the technology trends that are intersecting with the cloud, along with being a great touchpoint to see so many of our Sumo tech lovers. I'm excited to see the 2-3 trends that people are talking about the most throughout the event, getting a chance to meet with our customers, prospects and partners, and also to see colleagues new and old!