Prepare to host a data collection node

The Splunk App for VMware includes a virtual appliance version of the Data Collection Node (DCN). Splunk distributes this as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) file.

Splunk configures the DCN with the following default configuration:

• Four cores. 4 vCPUs or 2 vCPUs with two cores with a reservation of 2GHz.
• 6GB memory with a reservation of 1GB.
• 4-10GB of disk space.

In production, the DCNs communicate with the Distributed Collection Scheduler, which runs on the Splunk search head, to retrieve data from vCenter Server. To ensure reliable communication between systems, use static IP addresses and dedicated host names for each DCN. See "Collect Data from vCenter Server systems using the VMware API".

Preparation

Before you deploy the DCN

• Identify the vCenter servers and managed ESXi hosts from which you want to collect data.
• Determine the number of DCNs that you want to deploy. Each DCN can collect data from 40 or fewer ESXi hosts, with a ratio of 25 to 30 virtual machines per host.
• Obtain static IP addresses and host names to apply to each of the DCNs.

When you have this information, you can then create the data collection nodes. See "Deploy OVA to create a Data Collection Node".