Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect SPLK-2002 Exam Questions

Answer : D

According to the Splunk documentation1, any search head in the cluster can update the KV store collection. The KV store collection is replicated across all the cluster members, and any write operation is delegated to the KV store captain, who then synchronizes the changes with the other members. The KV store primary search head is not a valid term, as there is no such role in a search head cluster. The other options are false because:

The search head cluster captain is not the only node that can update the KV store collection, as any member can initiate a write operation1.

Any search head except the captain can also update the KV store collection, as the write operation will be delegated to the captain1.

Answer : C

The correct answer isC. Increase the parallellngestionPipelines attribute.This is an option in limits.conf that may provide performance benefits at the forwarding tier, as it allows the forwarder to process multiple data inputs in parallel1.The parallellngestionPipelines attribute specifies the number of pipelines that the forwarder can use to ingest data from different sources1.By increasing this value, the forwarder can improve its throughput and reduce the latency of data delivery1. The other options are not effective options to provide performance benefits at the forwarding tier.Option A, enabling the indexed_realtime_use_by_default attribute, is not recommended, as it enables the forwarder to send data to the indexer as soon as it is received, which may increase the network and CPU load and degrade the performance2.Option B, increasing the maxKBps attribute, is not a good option, as it increases the maximum bandwidth, in kilobytes per second, that the forwarder can use to send data to the indexer3.This may improve the data transfer speed, but it may also saturate the network and cause congestion and packet loss3.Option D, increasing the max_searches_per_cpu attribute, is not relevant, as it only affects the search performance on the indexer or search head, not the forwarding performance on the forwarder4. Therefore, option C is the correct answer, and options A, B, and D are incorrect.

1: Configure parallel ingestion pipelines2: Configure real-time forwarding3: Configure forwarder output4: Configure search performance

Answer : B

Splunk multisite indexer clustering is designed to tolerate temporary network and management-plane failures. The Cluster Manager is responsible for bucket replication coordination, fix-up tasks, and cluster state management, but it is not required for ongoing searching.

When Site 2 loses connectivity to Site 1 due to DNS failure, indexers at Site 2 continue to serve searchable buckets they already own. Search heads can still dispatch searches to available indexers and retrieve results from searchable copies that exist locally.

Splunk documentation explains that as long as searchable copies are available and indexers are reachable, searching continues normally, even if the Cluster Manager is temporarily unreachable. Only replication management and bucket fix-up operations are paused.

The cluster does not stop responding to searches, does not redirect searches to unreachable sites, and search heads never begin indexing data.

Therefore, the correct answer is B: The cluster continues to function and respond to searches.

Splunk Indexer Clustering Manual; Multisite Cluster Failure Behavior; Cluster Manager Role and Limitations.

Answer : D

According to the Indexer Clustering Administration Guide, the most efficient and Splunk-recommended way to configure and manage receiving ports for all clustered indexers (peer nodes) is through the Cluster Manager (previously known as the Master Node).

In a clustered environment, configuration changes that affect all peer nodes---such as receiving port definitions---should be managed centrally. The correct procedure is to define the inputs configuration file (inputs.conf) within the Cluster Manager's manager-apps directory. Specifically, the configuration is placed in:

$SPLUNK_HOME/etc/manager-apps/_cluster/local/inputs.conf

and then deployed to all peers using the configuration bundle push mechanism.

This centralized approach ensures consistency across all peer nodes, prevents manual configuration drift, and allows Splunk to maintain uniform ingestion behavior across the cluster.

Running splunk enable listen on each peer (Option C) or manually configuring inputs via Splunk Web (Option A) introduces inconsistencies and is not recommended in clustered deployments. Using the deployment-apps path (Option B) is meant for deployment servers, not for cluster management.

Reference (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

* Indexer Clustering: Configure Peer Nodes via Cluster Manager

* Deploy Configuration Bundles from the Cluster Manager

* inputs.conf Reference -- Receiving Data Configuration

* Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual -- Managing Clustered Indexers

Answer : D

Adding more search peers and making sure forwarders distribute data evenly across all indexers will provide the most search performance improvement when the distributed deployment is approaching its capacity. Adding more search peers will increase the search concurrency and reduce the load on each indexer. Distributing data evenly across all indexers will ensure that the search workload is balanced and no indexer becomes a bottleneck. Replacing the indexer storage to SSD will improve the search performance, but it is a costly and time-consuming option. Adding more search heads will not improve the search performance if the indexers are the bottleneck. Rescheduling slow searches to run during an off-peak time will reduce the search contention, but it will not improve the search performance for each individual search. For more information, see [Scale your indexer cluster] and [Distribute data across your indexers] in the Splunk documentation.

Answer : A

Splunk's multisite clustering documentation describes that search affinity is controlled by the site attribute in server.conf on the search head. Splunk explicitly states that assigning site=site0 on a search head removes site affinity, causing the search head to treat all sites as equal and search remotely as needed. The documentation describes site0 as the special value that disables local-site preference and forces the system to behave like a single-site cluster.

The customer wants each site's search head to pull results only from its local site. This behavior works only if the search head's site value matches the local site name (e.g., site1 or site2). By setting it to site0, all locality restrictions are removed, which prevents the desired reduction of network traffic.

The site search factor options (B and D) affect replication and searchable copy placement on indexers, not search head behavior. The number of indexers per site (C) also does not disable search affinity. Therefore only option A disables local-only searching.

Splunk Indexer Clustering Manual (Multisite Search Affinity; server.conf site parameter).

Answer : A

According to Splunk Enterprise Distributed Clustering documentation, when you add a search head to an indexer cluster, you must configure it to communicate with the Cluster Manager (previously known as Master Node). The proper way to initialize this connection is by editing the cluster configuration using the splunk edit cluster-config command.

The correct syntax for a search head is:

splunk edit cluster-config -mode searchhead -manager_uri https://<manager_host>:8089 -secret <shared_secret>

Here:

-mode searchhead specifies that this node will function as a search head that participates in distributed search across the indexer cluster.

-manager_uri provides the management URI of the cluster manager.

-secret defines the shared secret key used for secure communication between the manager and cluster members.

Once this configuration is applied, the search head must be restarted for the changes to take effect.

Using -mode peer (Option B) is for indexers joining the cluster, not search heads. The add cluster-manager command (Options C and D) is not a valid Splunk command.

Reference (Splunk Enterprise Documentation):

* Configure the Search Head for an Indexer Cluster

* Indexer Clustering: Configure the Cluster Manager, Peer, and Search Head Nodes

* Splunk Enterprise Admin Manual: splunk edit cluster-config Command Reference