# Elk Stacks

## Bigun

I've began going to security conferences, and I was introduced to ELK stacks.  After some research, I'm starting to understand what an ELK stack is.

Now, what I'm having issue figuring out is what is the ELK stack for?  How is data in the ELK stack populated?  How does one use an ELK stack on a repeatable task basis?  What benefit does having/using an ELK stack give my company/department?

Sorry for asking for clarification here, but googling ELK stack brings back a near perfect example of a word salad mixed with advertisements.

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## Jaglover

DuckDuck...

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## Hu

For those of us who have not gone to these conferences, perhaps you could define the key terms in your opening post.  I somehow doubt this involves creating towers of wildlife, but that's the only meaning of "ELK stack" that occurs to me.

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## saboya

This is like asking "What benefit does having a SQL server give my company/department?". If you can't answer that question, you probably don't need it.

For those who don't know, ELK stands for ElasticSearch + Logstash + Kibana.

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## Hu

saboya: thank you.  After posting, I ran the search Jaglover suggested, and it suggested that answer.  I decided not to amend my post both because a tower of elk was amusing to me and because I wanted the original poster to confirm that the hits from Jaglover's search were relevant to the question, rather than a coincidental match.  I've had too many occasions where short unoriginal names can mean very different things to different groups.  Wine (the beverage) versus Wine (the Windows compatibility layer) comes to mind as the most prominent example of coincidental unhelpful search engine results, although that pairing is usually disambiguated by surrounding context.

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## Bigun

 *saboya wrote:*   

> This is like asking "What benefit does having a SQL server give my company/department?". If you can't answer that question, you probably don't need it.
> 
> For those who don't know, ELK stands for ElasticSearch + Logstash + Kibana.

 

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, the response was a little on the douchey side, and it may be my fault.

I was under the understanding that ELK stacks are commonly used for log audits.  Just wondering how that gets populated with logs, and what daily maintenance would look like.

Getting search results that are clouded by software companies trying to sell you add-ons vs learning the damn technology pisses me off.

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