Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

Does Splunk parse structured data forwarded to the indexer?

1. Yes, always

2. No, it does not parse it

3. Only under certain conditions

4. It depends on the source type

The correct answer is: No, it does not parse it

The answer reflects the nature of how Splunk processes structured data. Splunk is primarily designed to index and analyze unstructured or semi-structured data, such as log files, text data, and other non-tabular data sources. While it can ingest structured data formats like CSV or XML, the indexing process does not inherently parse them into a structured format unless explicitly configured to do so. Structured data forwarded to an indexer is typically handled in a straightforward manner—it is indexed as-is without automatic parsing into structured fields. This means that Splunk does not automatically break down structured data into its components or fields unless configurations are put in place, such as specifying a certain source type that includes rules for parsing that kind of data. Therefore, the answer effectively highlights that by default, Splunk does not parse structured data during the indexing process, leading to the conclusion that it does not perform automatic parsing, aligning with the nature of the product's functionality.