Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

Which architecture provides the best options for scaling?

1. Single-server, standalone

2. Basic

3. Distributed

4. Hybrid

The correct answer is: Distributed

The distributed architecture offers the best options for scaling due to its ability to spread the workload over multiple servers or instances. In this setup, multiple components can be deployed to handle different tasks, such as data indexing, searching, and user requests. This means that as demand increases—whether due to larger volumes of data, more users, or more complex searches—additional resources can be added to the system without significantly affecting performance. With distributed architecture, you can add more indexers to increase indexing capacity, deploy additional search heads to distribute search queries, and set up various other components such as forwarders and cluster managers to streamline both data collection and processing. This flexibility makes it easier to scale horizontally, allowing organizations to respond quickly to growing needs without the risk of overloading a single server. Other architectures, such as single-server or standalone setups, inherently lack the scalability that distributed systems provide because they are limited by the hardware and resources of one machine. Basic architectures may also not support the same level of complexity in scaling as distributed systems, which are specifically designed to work in a modular and scalable manner. Hybrid architectures might provide some flexibility but are not as efficient and capable in terms of scaling as a fully distributed model.