Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

Which component primarily handles data collection in a Splunk deployment?

1. Indexer

2. Deployment server

3. Universal Forwarder

4. Search head cluster

The correct answer is: Universal Forwarder

The Universal Forwarder is the component primarily responsible for data collection in a Splunk deployment. It is lightweight and designed to run on the source machines where the data resides, efficiently gathering log and event data and then forwarding it to the indexer or other Splunk components for processing and analysis. This capability is particularly important in large-scale environments where data needs to be collected from multiple sources across different systems. The Universal Forwarder ensures that data is forwarded in near real-time, which is crucial for monitoring and alerting. In contrast, the other components have different primary responsibilities. The indexer is responsible for parsing, indexing, and storing the data, enabling search and analysis. The deployment server is used to manage configurations and updates for forwarders, but it doesn't handle data collection directly. The search head cluster is focused on performing search operations and managing search requests rather than collecting data from the sources. Thus, the Universal Forwarder is the correct choice for understanding which component specifically handles the crucial task of data collection in a Splunk environment.