Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

Which type of forwarder would you use to index data locally?

1. Universal

2. Heavy

3. Light

4. SNMP

The correct answer is: Heavy

The heavy forwarder is designed to index data locally, making it the preferred choice for this purpose. Unlike universal and light forwarders, which primarily focus on forwarding data to a remote Splunk instance, the heavy forwarder can perform full data parsing and indexing on the host machine where it is installed. This means that it can process incoming data, apply configurations, and write the indexed data directly to the local disk. This capability is particularly useful when a user needs to collect, preprocess, and store data locally before sending it to another Splunk instance for further analysis or data consolidation. Heavy forwarders offer advanced features such as transformation, filtering, and the ability to handle larger volumes of data compared to lighter alternatives. This makes them suitable for scenarios where localized indexing is critical, such as environments with high data ingestion rates or specific compliance needs. In contrast, the universal forwarder is lightweight and optimized primarily for data collection and forwarding without indexing capabilities, while the light forwarder is typically a variation of the universal forwarder with some limited processing functionality. SNMP is unrelated to forwarders in this context as it pertains to network management protocols rather than data forwarding or indexing.