Pass the Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect SPLK-2002 Questions and answers with Dumpstech

To determine where a Splunk forwarder is attempting to send its data, administrators can search within the _internal index using the metrics logs generated by the forwarder’s Splunkd process. The correct and documented search is:

index=_internal sourcetype=splunkd metrics destHost | dedup destHost

The _internal index contains detailed operational logs from the Splunkd process, including metrics on network connections, indexing pipelines, and output groups. The field destHost records the destination indexer(s) to which the forwarder is attempting to send data. Using dedup destHost ensures that only unique destination hosts are shown.

This search is particularly useful for troubleshooting forwarding issues, such as connection failures, misconfigurations in outputs.conf, or load-balancing behavior in multi-indexer setups.

Other listed options are invalid or incorrect because:

sourcetype=internal does not exist.

index=_metrics is not where Splunk stores forwarding telemetry.

The field inputHost identifies the source host, not the destination.

Thus, Option D aligns with Splunk’s official troubleshooting practices for forwarder-to-indexer communication validation.

References (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

• Monitoring Forwarder Connections and Destinations

• Troubleshooting Forwarding Using Internal Logs

• _internal Index Reference – Metrics and destHost Fields

• outputs.conf – Verifying Forwarder Data Routing and Connectivity

Setting site=site0 on all Search Head Cluster members disables search site affinity. Search site affinity is a feature that allows search heads to preferentially search the peer nodes that are in the same site as the search head, to reduce network latency and bandwidth consumption. By setting site=site0, which is a special value that indicates no site, the search heads will search all peer nodes regardless of their site. Setting site=site0 does not set all members to dynamic captaincy, enable multisite search artifact replication, or enable automatic search site affinity discovery. Dynamic captaincy is a feature that allows any member to become the captain, and it is enabled by default. Multisite search artifact replication is a feature that allows search artifacts to be replicated across sites, and it is enabled by setting site_replication_factor to a value greater than 1. Automatic search site affinity discovery is a feature that allows search heads to automatically determine their site based on the network latency to the peer nodes, and it is enabled by setting site=auto

 An indexer clustering requirement is that the cluster members must share the same license pool and license master. A license pool is a group of licenses that are assigned to a set of Splunk instances. A license master is a Splunk instance that manages the distribution and enforcement of licenses in a pool. In an indexer cluster, all cluster members must belong to the same license pool and report to the same license master, to ensure that the cluster does not exceed the license limit and that the license violations are handled consistently. An indexer cluster does not require shared storage, because each cluster member has its own local storage for the index data. An indexer cluster does not have to reside on a dedicated rack, because the cluster members can be located on different physical or virtual machines, as long as they can communicate with each other. An indexer cluster does not have to have at least three members, because a cluster can have as few as two members, although this is not recommended for high availability

The Monitoring Console (MC) is the Splunk Enterprise monitoring tool that lets you view detailed topology and performance information about your Splunk Enterprise deployment1. The MC can be installed on any Splunk Enterprise instance that can access the data from all the instances in the deployment2. However, following the Splunk recommendations, the MC should be installed on the search head cluster deployer, which is a dedicated instance that manages the configuration bundle for the search head cluster members3. This way, the MC can monitor the search head cluster as well as the indexer cluster and the forwarders, without affecting the performance or availability of the other instances4. The other options are not recommended because they either introduce additional load on the existing instances (such as A and D) or do not have access to the data from the search head cluster (such as B).

1: About the Monitoring Console - Splunk Documentation 2: Add Splunk Enterprise instances to the Monitoring Console 3: Configure the deployer - Splunk Documentation 4: [Monitoring Console setup and use - Splunk Documentation]

When building a deployment plan, the architect should perform the following tasks:

Use case checklist. A use case checklist is a document that lists the use cases that the deployment will support, along with the data sources, the data volume, the data retention, the data model, the dashboards, the reports, the alerts, and the roles and permissions for each use case. A use case checklist helps to define the scope and the functionality of the deployment, and to identify the dependencies and the requirements for each use case1

Inventory data sources. An inventory of data sources is a document that lists the data sources that the deployment will ingest, along with the data type, the data format, the data location, the data collection method, the data volume, the data frequency, and the data owner for each data source. An inventory of data sources helps to determine the data ingestion strategy, the data parsing and enrichment, the data storage and retention, and the data security and compliance for the deployment1

Review network topology. A review of network topology is a process that examines the network infrastructure and the network connectivity of the deployment, along with the network bandwidth, the network latency, the network security, and the network monitoring for the deployment. A review of network topology helps to optimize the network performance and reliability, and to identify the network risks and mitigations for the deployment1

Installing Splunk apps is not a task that the architect should perform when building a deployment plan, as it is a task that the administrator should perform when implementing the deployment plan. Installing Splunk apps is a technical activity that requires access to the Splunk instances and the Splunk configurations, which are not available at the planning stage

The correct configuration attribute to set in server.conf on the cluster manager in a single-site indexer cluster is master_uri. This attribute specifies the URI of the cluster manager, which is required for the peer nodes and search heads to communicate with it1. The other attributes are not required for a single-site indexer cluster, but they are used for a multisite indexer cluster. The site attribute defines the site name for each node in a multisite indexer cluster2. The replication_factor attribute defines the number of copies of each bucket to maintain across the entire multisite indexer cluster3. The site_replication_factor attribute defines the number of copies of each bucket to maintain across each site in a multisite indexer cluster4. Therefore, option A is the correct answer, and options B, C, and D are incorrect.

1: Configure the cluster manager 2: Configure the site attribute 3: Configure the replication factor 4: Configure the site replication factor

According to the Splunk documentation1, determining data capacity for an index is a complex task that depends on several factors, such as:

Average size of event data. This is the average number of bytes per event that you send to Splunk. The larger the events, the more storage space they require and the more indexing time they consume.

Number of data sources. This is the number of different types of data that you send to Splunk, such as logs, metrics, network packets, etc. The more data sources you have, the more diverse and complex your data is, and the more processing and parsing Splunk needs to do to index it.

Peak data rates. This is the maximum amount of data that you send to Splunk per second, minute, hour, or day. The higher the peak data rates, the more load and pressure Splunk faces to index the data in a timely manner.

The other option is false because:

Number of concurrent searches on data. This is not a factor that affects daily indexing volume, as it is related to the search performance and the search scheduler, not the indexing process. However, it can affect the overall resource utilization and the responsiveness of Splunk2.

The splunk offline --enforce-counts command is the official and documented method used to gracefully decommission a search peer (indexer) from an indexer cluster in Splunk Enterprise. This command ensures that all replication and search factors are maintained before the peer is removed.

When executed, Splunk initiates a controlled shutdown process for the peer node. The Cluster Manager verifies that sufficient replicated copies of all bucket data exist across the remaining peers according to the configured replication_factor (RF) and search_factor (SF). The --enforce-counts flag specifically enforces that replication and search counts remain intact before the peer fully detaches from the cluster, ensuring no data loss or availability gap.

The sequence typically includes:

Validating cluster state and replication health.

Rolling off the peer’s data responsibilities to other peers.

Removing the peer from the active cluster membership list once replication is complete.

Other options like disablepeer, decommission, or remove cluster-peers are not valid Splunk commands. Therefore, the correct documented method is to use:

splunk offline --enforce-counts

References (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

• Indexer Clustering: Decommissioning a Peer Node

• Managing Peer Nodes and Maintaining Data Availability

• Splunk CLI Command Reference – splunk offline

• Cluster Manager and Peer Maintenance Procedures

Splunk’s KV Store management documentation specifies that when converting a static CSV lookup to a KV Store lookup, the lookup data is stored in a MongoDB-based collection defined in collections.conf. To ensure that the KV Store lookup is replicated and available across all search head cluster members, administrators must include the attribute replicate=true within the collections.conf file.

This configuration instructs Splunk to replicate the KV Store collection’s data to all members in the Search Head Cluster (SHC), enabling consistent access and reliability across the cluster. Without this attribute, the KV Store collection would remain local to a single search head, making it unavailable for automatic lookups performed by other members.

Here’s an example configuration snippet from collections.conf:

[customer_lookup]

replicate = true

field.name = string

field.age = number

The attribute repFactor=true (mentioned in Options A and D) is unrelated to KV Store behavior—it applies to index replication, not KV Store replication. Similarly, replicate=true in lookups.conf (Option B) has no effect, as KV Store replication is controlled exclusively via collections.conf.

Once properly configured, the lookup can be defined in transforms.conf and referenced in props.conf for automatic lookup functionality.

References (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

• KV Store Collections and Configuration – collections.conf Reference

• Managing KV Store Data in Search Head Clusters

• Automatic Lookup Configuration Using KV Store

• Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual – Distributed KV Store Replication Settings

A monitored log file is changing on the forwarder, but Splunk searches are not finding any new data that has been added. This could be caused by two possible reasons: B. An admin has removed the Splunk fishbucket on the forwarder. C. The last 256 bytes of the monitored file are not changing. Option B is correct because the Splunk fishbucket is a directory that stores information about the files that have been monitored by Splunk, such as the file name, size, modification time, and CRC checksum. If an admin removes the fishbucket, Splunk will lose track of the files that have been previously indexed and will not index any new data from those files. Option C is correct because Splunk uses the CRC checksum of the last 256 bytes of a monitored file to determine if the file has changed since the last time it was read. If the last 256 bytes of the file are not changing, Splunk will assume that the file is unchanged and will not index any new data from it. Option A is incorrect because running the splunk clean eventdata -index  command on the indexer will delete all the data from the specified index, but it will not affect the forwarder’s ability to send new data to the indexer. Option D is incorrect because Splunk does not use the first 256 bytes of a monitored file to determine if the file has changed12

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.1.2/Data/Monitorfilesanddirectories 2: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/9.1.2/Troubleshooting/Didyouloseyourfishbucket