20 Splunk IT Service Intelligence Interview Questions and Answers

Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) is a powerful application that helps organizations manage and monitor their IT infrastructure. If you are interviewing for a position that involves Splunk ITSI, it is important to be prepared to answer questions about your experience and knowledge of the application. In this article, we will review some of the most common Splunk ITSI interview questions and provide some tips on how to answer them.

Splunk IT Service Intelligence Interview Questions and Answers

Here are 20 commonly asked Splunk IT Service Intelligence interview questions and answers to prepare you for your interview:

1. What is Splunk and what are some of its important features?

Splunk is a software platform that enables users to collect, index, and search data from any source, including log files, databases, and social media sources. Splunk also provides a range of features for analyzing and visualizing data, including dashboards, charts, and reports.

2. Can you explain the basic components of Splunk?

Splunk is a software platform that enables you to collect, index, and search data from any source, no matter how big or small. The platform is made up of three main components: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Cloud, and Splunk Light. Splunk Enterprise is the on-premises version of the platform, while Splunk Cloud is the cloud-based version. Splunk Light is the lightweight version of the platform, designed for small businesses.

3. What are the different types of searches supported by Splunk?

Splunk supports a variety of searches, including:

-Simple searches
-Field searches
-Wildcard searches
-Regular expression searches
-Case-sensitive searches

4. How do you perform real-time search in Splunk?

Splunk’s real-time search feature allows you to search your data as it is being indexed. This is useful for finding recent events or for monitoring purposes. To enable real-time search, you need to set up a real-time search head and enable the feature on your indexes.

5. What are the various ways data can be collected using Splunk?

Splunk can collect data in a number of ways, including through log files, network traffic, and data from sensors and other devices. Splunk can also collect data from third-party sources, such as social media, weather data, and financial data.

6. Can you explain how to use indexes effectively in Splunk?

Indexes are a fundamental part of Splunk, and are used to store and organize your data. When you add data to Splunk, it is automatically assigned to an index. You can also specify which index to use when you add data. Indexes are used to improve search performance and to reduce the amount of time it takes to search your data.

7. Explain about the splunk architecture.

Splunk’s architecture is designed to make it easy to collect, index, and search data from any source, no matter how big or small. The data is first collected by Splunk’s Universal Forwarder, which then sends it to the Splunk Indexer. The Indexer then indexes the data and makes it searchable. Finally, the data is searchable via the Splunk Web interface.

8. Why does it take time for new events to show up when searching?

Splunk IT Service Intelligence uses a feature called “event throttling” to help improve search performance. When event throttling is enabled, Splunk will only show new events after a certain amount of time has passed. This helps to prevent the search results from being overwhelmed with too much data.

9. Can you explain the difference between a host, source, and source type in context with data collection in Splunk?

A host is a physical or virtual machine where an application or process runs. A source is the name of the file, directory, or other input from which Splunk collects data. A source type is a category of data with a defined set of characteristics.

10. What’s an indexer in the context of Splunk?

An indexer is a Splunk instance that stores and indexes data.

11. What is the best way to manage hardware resources while running searches on Splunk?

One way to manage hardware resources while running searches on Splunk is to use the search head clustering feature. This feature allows you to distribute searches across multiple Splunk instances, which can help to balance the load and improve performance.

12. What are lookups in Splunk?

Lookups are a feature in Splunk that allows you to use data from an external source to enrich your data. This can be useful if you want to add additional context to your data, or if you want to perform calculations on data that is not stored in Splunk.

13. What are tags and eventtypes used for in Splunk?

Tags and eventtypes are used to categorize and organize data within Splunk. You can use tags to label and categorize data, which can be helpful when searching and filtering through large amounts of data. Eventtypes can be used to identify and classify different types of events, which can also be helpful in narrowing down searches.

14. Is it possible to load custom Python libraries into Splunk? If yes, then how?

Yes, it is possible to load custom Python libraries into Splunk. You can do this by adding the path to your custom library to the SPLUNK_HOME/etc/splunk-launch.conf file.

15. How do you define alerts in Splunk?

Alerts are defined in Splunk by setting up conditions that, when met, will trigger an alert. These conditions can be based on searches, time ranges, and other factors. Once an alert is triggered, Splunk can take action such as sending an email, running a script, or calling an external API.

16. What are the main differences between Splunk free version and Splunk enterprise version?

The main differences between Splunk free version and Splunk enterprise version are that the enterprise version has more features and is more expensive. The enterprise version includes features like distributed search, clustering, and advanced analytics, while the free version does not. The enterprise version also supports more data inputs and has a higher indexing limit.

17. What are the reasons why a saved search might not run as expected?

There are a few reasons why a saved search might not run as expected. One reason might be that the search conditions have changed since the search was saved, and the search is no longer valid. Another reason might be that the search is not set to run on a schedule, and it has not been run manually since it was last saved. Finally, the search might not have been properly configured when it was saved, and it is not running correctly as a result.

18. Can you give me some examples of use cases for Splunk?

Splunk can be used for a variety of different tasks, but is most commonly used for monitoring and analyzing machine-generated data. This could include data from web servers, application logs, and system performance data. Splunk can also be used to perform security analysis, business analysis, and compliance analysis.

19. What is the recommended size for an index?

The recommended size for an index is 10GB.

20. Can you explain the role of splunkd daemon in Splunk?

The splunkd daemon is the heart of a Splunk deployment. It handles all of the Splunk software’s internal operations, such as search, distribution of search results, forwarding, and administration.