Components of a Splunk deployment

Components of a Splunk deployment

Splunk is simple to deploy by design. By using a single software component and easy to understand configurations, Splunk can coexist with existing infrastructure or be deployed as a universal platform for accessing IT data.

The simplest deployment is the one you get by default when you install Splunk: indexing and searching on the same server. Data comes in from the sources you've configured, and you log into Splunk Web or the CLI on this same server to search, monitor, alert, and report on your IT data.

Depending on your needs, you can also deploy components of Splunk on different servers to address your load and availability requirements. This section covers these potential components:

Indexer

In this mode, indexers, or index servers, provide indexing capability for local and remote data and host the primary Splunk datastore, as well as Splunk Web. Refer to "How indexing works" in the Admin Manual for more information.

Search head

In this mode, a Splunk instance is configured to direct user search requests to one or more indexers. Use distributed search to configure a search head to search across a pool of indexers.

Forwarder

Forwarders use the same Splunk software package but do not store indexed data locally. All indexed data is forwarded to remote index servers. To reduce operational footprint, Splunk Web is not used. Refer to the documentation on setting up a Splunk instance as a forwarder.

Deployment server

Both indexers and forwarders can also act as deployment servers. A deployment server distributes configuration information to running instances of Splunk via a push mechanism which is enabled through configuration. Refer to the documentation on setting up a Splunk instance as a deployment server.

Functions at a glance

Functions	Indexer	Search head	Forwarder	Deployment server
Indexing	x
Web	x
Direct search		x
Forward to indexer			x
Deploy configurations	x		x	x

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