Top Splunk Interview Questions

With the help of Splunk, businesses may employ on-premises data centers, public clouds, apps, services, and third-party technologies to extract insightful information from data. As a Splunk Administration Analyst, there are several possibilities to advance in some of the top businesses worldwide. Some of the most significant Splunk admin interview questions and responses are provided here to assist you in choosing your career path.

Define Splunk

Splunk is basically a piece of software that is used for finding, displaying, and keeping track of massive data that is produced by machines. It keeps track of many log file kinds and saves data in indexers.

List Common Ports Used by Splunk

Splunk frequently uses the following ports −

• HTTP port 8000

• Control Port: 8089

• the 514-network port

• Port for Index Replication: 8080

• Port for Indexing: 9997

• Store KV: 8191

Describe the Splunk Components

Listed below are Splunk's core elements −

• The lightweight Universal Forward component inserts data into the Splunk forwarder.

• Heavy component that lets you filter the necessary data is what we mean by "heavy forward."

• This part of the search head is utilized to gather intelligence and carry out reporting.

• License manager: The license depends on usage and volume. You are permitted to utilize 50 GB each day. Splunk often verifies the licensing information.

• Load Balancer: In addition to the capabilities of the built-in Splunk loader, you may also utilize your own custom load balancer.

What is the Significance of Splunk Indexer?

This Splunk Enterprise component builds and maintains indexes. An indexer's two main tasks are to

• Index raw data into an index and

• Search for and manage index data.

What are the Drawbacks of Using Splunk?

Using the Splunk tool has certain drawbacks.

• For huge data volumes, Splunk can be costly.

• Although useful, dashboards fall short of several other monitoring technologies in terms of effectiveness.

• Due to its multi-tier design and steep learning curve, Splunk training is required. Therefore, learning how to use this tool will take a lot of time.

• Regular expressions and search syntax are particularly challenging to comprehend while doing searches.

Data Entry via Forwarders in Splunk Instances

TCP connection, bandwidth limiting, and secure SSL connection for transmitting important data from a forwarder to an indexer are benefits of using forwarders to enter data into Splunk.

Define the Role of Licensing Master In Splunk

Splunk's license master makes sure that the appropriate volume of data is indexed. It makes sure that the environment stays within the parameters of the volume that was purchased because Splunk's license is based on the volume of data that enters the platform during a 24-hour timeframe.

List Some Splunk Configuration Files

Typical Splunk configuration files include

• Opens a file

• Changes a file

• Indexing file on the server

• Photos file

Describe Splunk License Infringement

When you go above the allotted data, a warning error appears. This error message will stay active for 14 days. Your Indexer search results and reports may trigger for up to 5 warnings in a rolling 1-month period under a commercial license before they stop doing so. However, the licensing violation alert in the free edition only displays three instances of warning

What does Splunk Alert Serve?

When you need to keep an eye out for certain occurrences and react to them, alerts may be useful. For instance, when there are more than three unsuccessful login attempts within a 24-hour period, the user may receive an email notification as an alert to check the whereabouts of the login attempts.

Explain the Map-Reduce Algorithm

Splunk uses the map-reduce algorithm as a method of accelerating data searches. It draws inspiration from two useful programming features. (1) cut ((2) map (). Here, the map () and reduce () functions are connected to the Mapper and Reducer classes, respectively.

What are the Various Data Inputs in Splunk?

The following list includes many of Splunk’s data inputs −

• Input from files and directories

• Setting up network ports to automatically accept inputs

• Include Windows inputs. These window inputs come in four varieties: Active directory, printers, networks, and registry inputs are the first four monitors.

How does Splunk Indexing Duplicate Logs?

You may keep track of indexed events in a fish buckets directory using Splunk. The files you are indexing have CRCs and seek points, which prevent Splunk from reading them if it has previously done so.

Describe Data Models and Pivots in Splunk

To generate the front views of your output, utilize pivots. Then, we use the most appropriate filter for a better view of your output. People with a non-technical or semitechnical background can benefit from either of the choices provided. The most typical use of data models is the construction of a hierarchical data model. But it may also be utilized if you have a lot of unstructured data. You can utilize that information more effectively without employing challenging search terms thanks to it.

Define The Term “Summary Index”

A summary index is a unique index that is used to hold the Splunk-calculated result. It is an affordable and quick approach to execute a query for a longer duration.

How Can I Stop Splunk From Indexing my Events?

Debug messages should be placed in the null queue to be excluded from Splunk's indexing of the event. The forwarder level itself in the transforms.conf file must maintain the null queue.

Define Splunk DB Connect

It is a SQL database plugin that permits the addition of a database by importing its tables, rows, and columns. With the aid of a Splunk DB Connect, databases and Splunk Enterprises can be integrated in a dependable and scalable manner.

Conclusion

Above listed are the top 17 most asked Splunk Interview questions which will help you to do last minute revision and also do the self-analysis upon your understanding in regard to knowledge on Splunk. Apart from that these 17 questions are capable of helping a beginner who is just getting into Splunk and is continuously taking measures to explore , learn and implement Splunk inorder to do a self test on learnings.