SPLK-2002 Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

You want to move an indexer peer to a different site in an existing multisite cluster. What is the procedure to ensure the cluster recognizes the new site mapping?

Accepted Answer

Change the site value in server.conf and restart the indexer. To move a peer to a different site, you change the site value in the [general] stanza of server.conf on that peer and restart Splunk. On restart, the peer re-registers with the cluster master and reports its new site, and the master updates its site mapping accordingly. No rebalance or re-add is required for the site change itself, though a rebalance may be desired afterward to redistribute bucket copies.

Answer

Run a rebalance command on the CM

Answer

Delete the indexer and re-add it

Answer

Modify the indexer's hostname

Question 2

Which TWO performance-related tasks should be performed on a regular basis?

Accepted Answer

Reviewing the Search Activity dashboard. Option A is correct because reviewing the Search Activity dashboard on a regular basis reveals search performance metrics such as search concurrency, runtimes, and skipped or queued searches, allowing administrators to identify and address performance degradation proactively. Option E is correct because monitoring index storage usage regularly helps prevent indexes from reaching disk capacity limits, which would cause indexing to pause or searches to fail, and it supports capacity planning and retention policy tuning. Option B is not appropriate because deleting all historical data is destructive and unnecessary; retention should be managed through configured policies, not wholesale deletion. Option C is wrong because restarting indexers daily is disruptive and does not improve performance; indexers should only be restarted for maintenance or troubleshooting. Option D is incorrect because license capacity is a purchased entitlement that cannot and should not be increased daily as a performance task.

Answer

Deleting all historical data

Answer

Restarting all indexers daily

Answer

Increasing license capacity daily

Question 3

Which dashboard in the Monitoring Console provides the best overview of resource consumption per search head?

Accepted Answer

Search Head Activity. The Search Head Activity dashboard in the Monitoring Console provides the best overview of resource consumption per search head, showing metrics such as CPU usage, memory, disk I/O, and search load broken down by search head. It is designed specifically to help admins identify which search heads are under heavy load and to balance search distribution. Other dashboards focus on different tiers (indexers, forwarders) or different concerns (ingestion performance).

Answer

Data Ingestion Performance

Answer

Resource Usage: Forwarders

Answer

Indexer Activity

Question 4

Which THREE of the following are risks if the replication_factor is too low?

Accepted Answer

Data loss if an indexer fails.. In Splunk indexer clustering, replication_factor determines how many copies of each bucket are maintained across peer nodes, so setting it too low directly creates availability and durability risks. Option B is correct because with a low replication_factor there are fewer bucket copies than needed to tolerate failures, so if an indexer (peer) holding a copy fails, buckets can be lost or go missing until recovered. Option C is correct because the search factor (number of searchable copies) can never exceed the replication_factor; if replication_factor is set below the desired search factor, the cluster cannot meet its search factor requirements. Option D is correct because with minimal replicas, taking a peer offline for maintenance removes a copy and can push buckets below the replication factor, causing degraded search availability and longer downtime while the cluster re-replicates or recovers. Option A is not correct because indexing speed is not directly governed by replication_factor in this way, and Option E is not correct because the cluster manager's CPU usage is not a defined risk of a low replication_factor.

Answer

Slower indexing speed.

Answer

Higher CPU usage on the CM.

Question 5

You are tasked with upgrading an Indexer Cluster. Which order of operations is recommended by Splunk best practices?

Accepted Answer

Upgrade the Cluster Master first, then the indexer peers. Splunk best practices recommend upgrading the Cluster Master first, then the indexer peers. This is because the Cluster Master must be running a version that is compatible with the peers, and it manages the upgrade process. After the master is upgraded, peers can be upgraded in a rolling fashion to maintain cluster availability.

Answer

Upgrade the search heads first

Answer

Upgrade all components simultaneously

Answer

Upgrade the indexer peers first, then the Cluster Master

Question 6

What is the primary architectural trade-off when using very short 'maxHotSpanSecs' values?

Accepted Answer

Increased metadata overhead on the indexer. 'maxHotSpanSecs' defines the maximum time span a bucket can remain in the hot state before rolling to warm. Very short values cause buckets to roll frequently, creating many small buckets. Each bucket carries metadata (bloom filters, tsidx files, bucket manifest), so frequent rolling increases metadata overhead on the indexer and can degrade performance.

Answer

Improved data ingestion speed

Answer

Reduced search performance

Answer

Increased compression efficiency

Question 7

What is the effect of setting 'forwarder_site_failover=true' in the indexer discovery stanza?

Accepted Answer

Forwarders can failover to indexers in another site.. Setting `forwarder_site_failover=true` in the indexer discovery stanza enables forwarders to send data to indexers in another site if the local site's indexers are unavailable. This provides site-level redundancy and ensures data continues to flow during a site outage.

Answer

It mandates the use of SSL.

Answer

It increases the replication factor.

Answer

Forwarders will stop sending data if the local site is down.

Answer

The indexer discovery service is disabled.

Question 8

Which component is responsible for distributing configuration bundles to indexers in a cluster?

Accepted Answer

Cluster Master. In an indexer cluster, the Cluster Master (now Cluster Manager) is responsible for distributing configuration bundles to the indexers (peers). It coordinates the application of configuration changes and ensures that all peers receive the latest bundle. The Deployment Server is used for standalone Splunk instances, not for indexer clusters.

Answer

Deployment Server

Answer

License Master

Answer

Indexer Peer

Answer

Search Head

Question 9

When using a load balancer in front of a search head cluster, why is session affinity (sticky sessions) recommended?

Accepted Answer

To maintain session persistence and search job state.. Session affinity (sticky sessions) ensures that all requests from a given client are routed to the same search head for the duration of a session. In a Splunk search head cluster, search jobs and their artifacts (results, job state, dispatch directory) are stored locally on the search head that initiated the job. If a subsequent request lands on a different search head, that node has no knowledge of the job, causing errors or lost results. Sticky sessions preserve the mapping between the client and the search head that owns the job.

Answer

To increase the replication speed.

Answer

To prevent unauthorized access.

Answer

To improve indexing performance.

Answer

To reduce the number of license tokens.

Question 10

Which component in an Indexer Cluster is responsible for assigning buckets to peers?

Accepted Answer

The Cluster Master. In an indexer cluster, the Cluster Master (also called the master node) is responsible for coordinating replication and managing bucket assignment to peers. It tells peers which buckets to replicate and where to search. It does not handle data indexing itself but orchestrates the cluster.

Answer

The Search Head

Answer

The indexer peer itself

Answer

The Deployment Server