SPLK-2002 Exam Dumps - Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect

Two indexers clustered is the recommended deployment for a customer who plans to ingest 600 GB of data per day into Splunk, has six concurrent users, and wants high data availability and high search performance. This deployment will provide enough indexing capacity and search concurrency for the customer’s needs, while also ensuring data replication and searchability across the cluster. The customer can also save on the hardware cost by using only two indexers. Two indexers not in a cluster will not provide high data availability, as there is no data replication or failover. Three indexers not in a cluster will provide more indexing capacity and search concurrency, but also more hardware cost and no data availability. The customer’s data retention period, number of long searches, or volume of saved/scheduled searches are not relevant for determining the number of indexers. For more information, see [Reference hardware] and [About indexer clusters and index replication] in the Splunk documentation.

The frequency in which a deployment client contacts the deployment server is controlled by the phoneHomeIntervalInSecs attribute in deploymentclient.conf. This attribute specifies how often the deployment client checks in with the deployment server to get updates on the apps and configurations that it should receive. The polling_interval attribute in outputs.conf controls how often the forwarder sends data to the indexer or another forwarder. The polling_interval attribute in deploymentclient.conf and the phoneHomeIntervalInSecs attribute in outputs.conf are not valid Splunk attributes. For more information, see Configure deployment clients and Configure forwarders with outputs.conf in the Splunk documentation.

The Splunk server name of the member can typically be determined by the serverName attribute in the server.conf file, which is not explicitly shown in the provided snippet. However, based on the provided configuration snippet, we can infer that this search head cluster member is configured to communicate with a cluster master (master_uri) located at node1 and a management node (mgmt_uri) located at node3. The serverName is not the same as the master_uri or mgmt_uri; these URIs indicate the location of the master and management nodes that this member interacts with.

Since the serverName is not provided in the snippet, one would typically look for a setting under the [general] stanza in server.conf. However, given the options and the common naming conventions in a Splunk environment, node3 would be a reasonable guess for the server name of this member, since it is indicated as the management URI within the [shclustering] stanza, which suggests it might be the name or address of the server in question.

For accurate identification, you would need to access the full server.conf file or the Splunk Web on the search head cluster member and look under Settings > Server settings > General settings to find the actual serverName. Reference for these details would be found in the Splunk documentation regarding the configuration files, particularly server.conf.

The following clarification steps should be taken if apps are not appearing on a deployment client:

Check serverclass.conf of the deployment server. This file defines the server classes and the apps and configurations that they should receive from the deployment server. Make sure that the deployment client belongs to the correct server class and that the server class has the desired apps and configurations.

Check deploymentclient.conf of the deployment client. This file specifies the deployment server that the deployment client contacts and the client name that it uses. Make sure that the deployment client is pointing to the correct deployment server and that the client name matches the server class criteria.

Search for relevant events in splunkd.log of the deployment server. This file contains information about the deployment server activities, such as sending apps and configurations to the deployment clients, detecting client check-ins, and logging any errors or warnings. Look for any events that indicate a problem with the deployment server or the deployment client.

Checking the content of SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps of the deployment server is not a necessary clarification step, as this directory does not contain the apps and configurations that are distributed to the deployment clients. The apps and configurations for the deployment server are stored in SPLUNK_HOME/etc/deployment-apps. For more information, see Configure deployment server and clients in the Splunk documentation.

 A collection is defined in the collections.conf file, which specifies the name, schema, and permissions of the collection. The kvstore.conf file is used to configure the KV store settings, such as the port, SSL, and replication factor. The other two files do not exist1

The splunk validate cluster-bundle --check-restart command is the officially documented Splunk Enterprise method to determine if a configuration bundle push will trigger a rolling restart within an indexer cluster.

When configuration changes are made on the Cluster Manager (Master Node)—for example, updates to indexes.conf, props.conf, or transforms.conf—Splunk administrators must validate the bundle before pushing it to all peer nodes. Using this command allows the Cluster Manager to simulate the deployment and verify whether the configuration modifications necessitate a restart across peer indexers to take effect.

The --check-restart flag specifically reports whether:

The configuration changes are minor (no restart required).

The changes affect components that require a full or rolling restart (e.g., changes to indexing paths, volume definitions, or replication factors).

Running this validation prior to an actual splunk apply cluster-bundle command prevents service disruption during production operations.

Other commands such as splunk show cluster-bundle-status display deployment status but not restart requirements, and splunk apply cluster-bundle executes the actual deployment, not validation.

References (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

• Indexer Clustering: Deploy Configuration Bundles with Validation

• splunk validate cluster-bundle Command Reference

• Managing Indexer Clusters – Rolling Restarts and Bundle Deployment Best Practices

• Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual – Cluster Manager Maintenance Commands

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 index-time props.conf attributes that impact indexing performance are LINE_BREAKER and SHOULD_LINEMERGE. These attributes determine how Splunk breaks the incoming data into events and whether it merges multiple events into one. These operations can affect the indexing speed and the disk space consumption. The REPORT attribute does not impact indexing performance, as it is used to apply transforms at search time. The ANNOTATE_PUNCT attribute does not impact indexing performance, as it is used to add punctuation metadata to events at search time. For more information, see [About props.conf and transforms.conf] in the Splunk documentation.