Getting Data In

Is my data local or remote?

When initially getting data into Splunk Enterprise, you might encounter some confusion as to what type of data is considered "local" and what type of data is considered "remote." The distinction between local and remote is particularly important when you are navigating the new data input pages.

The answer to this question depends on a number of criteria, including (but not limited to):

• The operating system on which your Splunk Enterprise instance resides
• The types of data stores that are directly connected to your Splunk Enterprise instance
• Whether any authentication or other intermediate steps are needed to access the data store that contains the data you want to index

Local

A local resource is a fixed resource that your Splunk Enterprise server has direct access to, meaning you are able to access it - and whatever is contained within it - without having to attach, connect, or perform any other intermediate action (such as authentication or mapping a network drive) in order to have that resource appear available to your system. If your data is on such a resource, the data is considered "local."

Some examples of local data include:

• A hard disk or solid state drive installed in a desktop or laptop
• A RAM disk loaded at system start-up

Remote

A remote resource is any resource where the above definition is not satisfied. Network drives mapped from Windows systems, Active Directory schemas, and NFS or other network-based mounts on *nix systems are examples that qualify for this designation. Data gathered from these resource endpoints is also considered "remote."

Exceptions

There are cases where resources that would normally be considered remote are actually not. Here are some examples:

• A machine has a volume permanently mounted over a high-bandwidth physical connection such as USB or FireWire. Since the computer can mount the resource at boot time, it's treated as a local resource, even though the resource can theoretically be disconnected at a later time.
• A machine has a resource permanently mounted over a high-bandwidth network standard such as iSCSI, or to a Storage Area Network over fiber. As the standard treats such volumes as local block devices, such a resource would be considered local.