Draw a diagram of your deployment

Drawing a diagram of your deployment is a useful tool for you to visualize the details as you learn about your deployment, as well as to refer to in the future.

As you read the topics in this manual, create a diagram of your Splunk deployment. Add details as you discover them.

Your diagram can be on paper, which is preferable at the beginning. If you prefer to work with a diagramming tool like Visio or Omnigraffle, you can download the following Splunk icon sets:

• Visio stencil
• Omnigraffle file
• Transparent PNG

For guidance about the use of the icons, see the Splunk Icon Style Guide.

Your diagram should show the following items:

• Each search head.
• Each indexer.
• Any additional components such as
  • indexer cluster manager
  • search head cluster deployer
  • deployment server
  • license manager
  • monitoring console
  • KV store
• Forwarders, or with a large number of forwarders, server classes, which are sets of forwarders.
• The connections between each instance.

When placing a node in the diagram, leave room around the image so you can add information as you discover it. Each node should include the following information:

• The version of Splunk Enterprise it is running.
• Note if it is running a KV store.
• All open ports.
• Machine information like operating system, CPU, physical memory, storage type, mount points, and virtualization.

See the next topic, Deployment topologies, for definitions of most of the components. Continue to the following topics for steps for discovering them using either the monitoring console, if you have it, or configuration file inspection if you do not have the monitoring console. See Review your apps and add-ons for information and steps for discovering server classes and the KV store in your deployment.