Data ingestion in Splunk happens through the Add Data feature which is a component of the search and reporting app. After logging in, the Splunk interface home screen shows the Add Data icon as shown below.

On clicking this button, we are presented with the screen to pick the source and format of the info we decide to push to Splunk for analysis.

Gathering the Info

We can get the info for analysis from the Official Website of Splunk. Save this file and unzip it in your local drive. On opening the folder, you’ll find three files which have different formats. they’re the log data generated by some web apps. we will also gather another set of knowledge provided by Splunk which is out there at from the Official Splunk webpage.

We will use data from both these sets for understanding the working of varied features of Splunk.

Uploading data

Next, we elect the file, secure.log from the folder, mail sv which we’ve kept in our local system as mentioned within the previous paragraph. After selecting the file, we move to next step using the green coloured next button within the top right corner.

Selecting Source Type

Splunk has an in-built feature to detect the sort of the info being ingested. It also gives the user a choice to choose a special data type than the chosen by Splunk. On clicking the source type sink, we will see various data types that Splunk can ingest and enable for searching.

In the current example given below, we elect the default source type.

Input Settings

In this step of data ingestion, we configure the host name from which the data is being ingested. Following are the options to choose from, for the host name −

Constant value

It is the complete host name where the source data resides.

regex on path

When you want to extract the host name with a regular expression. Then enter the regex for the host you want to extract in the Regular expression field.

segment in path

When you want to extract the host name from a segment in your data source’s path, enter the segment number in the Segment number field. For example, if the path to the source is /var/log/ and you want the third segment (the host server name) to be the host value, enter “3”.

Next, we choose the index type to be created on the input data for searching. We choose the default index strategy. The summary index only creates summary of the data through aggregation and creates index on it while the history index is for storing the search history. It is clearly depicted in the image below −

Review Settings

After clicking on subsequent button, we see a summary of the settings we’ve chosen. We review it and choose Next to end the uploading of data.

On finishing the load, the below screen appears which shows the successful data ingestion and further possible actions we can take on the data.

Splunk – Source Types

All the incoming data to Splunk are first judged by its inbuilt data processing unit and classified to certain data types and categories. For example, if it is a log from apache web server, Splunk is able to recognize that and create appropriate fields out of the data read.

This feature in Splunk is called source type detection and it uses its built-in source types that are known as “pretrained” source types to achieve this.

This makes things easier for analysis as the user does not have to manually classify the data and assign any data types to the fields of the incoming data.

Supported Source Types

The supported source types in Splunk can be seen by uploading a file through the Add Data feature and then selecting the dropdown for Source Type. In the below image, we have uploaded a CSV file and then checked for all the available options.

Source Type Sub-Category

Even in those categories, we can further click to see all the sub categories that are supported. So, when you choose the database category, you can find the different types of databases and their supported files which Splunk can recognize.

Pre-Trained Source Types

The below table lists some of the important pre-trained source types Splunk recognizes −

So, this brings us to the end of Process of Data Ingestion in Splunk Environment blog.

This Tecklearn ‘Process of Data Ingestion in Splunk Environment’ helps you with commonly asked questions if you are looking out for a job in Splunk and Big Data Domain.

If you wish to learn Splunk and build a career in Splunk or Big Data domain, then check out our interactive, Splunk Developer and Admin Training, that comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period. Please find the link for course details:

https://www.tecklearn.com/course/splunk-training-and-certification-developer-and-admin/

Splunk Developer & Admin Training

About the Course

Tecklearn’s Splunk Training covers all aspects of Splunk development and Splunk administration from basic to expert level. The trainee will go through various aspects of Splunk installation, configuration, etc. and also learn to create reports and dashboards, both using Splunk’s searching and reporting commands. As part of the course, also work on Splunk deployment management, indexes, parsing, Splunk cluster implementation, and more. With this online Splunk training, you can quickly get up and run with the Splunk platform and successfully clear the Splunk Certification exam.

Why Should you take Splunk Developer and Admin Training?

Splunk Development Operations Engineer can pocket home salaries of upto $148,590. -Indeed.com
13,000+ customers in over 110 countries are already using Splunk to gain operational intelligence & reduce operational cost.
IDC predicts by 2020, world will be home to 40 trillion GB data. The demand to process this data is higher than ever.

What you will Learn in this Course?

Splunk Administration

Overview of Splunk

Need for Splunk and its features
Splunk Products and their Use-Case
Splunk Components: Search Head, Indexer, Forwarder, Deployment Server & License Master
Splunk Licensing options

Splunk Architecture

Introduction to the architecture of Splunk

Splunk Installation

Download and Install Splunk
Configure Splunk
Creation of index

Splunk Configuration Files

Introduction to Splunk configuration files
Managing the. conf files

Splunk App and Apps Management

Splunk App
How to develop Splunk apps
Splunk App Management
Splunk App add-ons
App permissions and Implementation

User roles and authentication

Introduction to Authentication techniques
User Creation and Management
Splunk Admin Roles and Responsibilities
Splunk License Management

Splunk Index Management

Splunk Indexes
Segregation of the Splunk Indexes
Concept of Splunk Buckets and Bucket Classification
Creating New Index and estimating Index storage

Various Splunk Input Methods

Understanding the input methods
Agentless input types

Splunk Universal Forwarder

Universal Forwarder management
Overview of Splunk Universal Forwarder

Deployment Management in Splunk

Implementing the Splunk tool and deploying it on server
Splunk environment setup and Splunk client group deployment

Basic Production Environment

Universal Forwarder
Forwarder Management
Data management
Troubleshooting and Monitoring

Splunk Search Engine

Integrating Search using Head Clustering and Indexer Clustering
Conversion of machine-generated data to operational intelligence
Set up Dashboard, Charts and Reports

Search Scaling and Monitoring

Splunk Distributed Management Console for monitoring
Large-scale deployment and overcoming execution hurdles
Distributed search concepts
Improving search performance

Splunk Cluster Implementation and Index Clustering

Cluster indexing
Configuring the cluster behaviour
Index and search behaviour

Distributed Management Console

Introduction to Splunk distributed management console
How to deploy distributed search in Splunk environment

Splunk Developer

Splunk Development Concepts

Roles and Responsibilities of Splunk developer

Basic Searching

Basic Searching using Splunk query
Build Search, refine search and time range using Auto-complete
Controlling a search job and Identifying the contents of search

Using Fields in Searches

Using Fields in search
Deployment of Field Extractor and Fields Sidebar for REGEX field extraction

Splunk Search Commands

Search command
General search practices
Concept of search pipeline
Specify indexes in search
Deployment of the various search commands: Fields, Sort, Tables, Rename, rex and erex

Creating Reports and Dashboards

Creation of Reports, Charts and Dashboards
Editing Dashboards and Reports
Adding reports to dashboard

Creating Alerts

Create alerts
Understanding alerts
Viewing fired alerts

Splunk Commands

Splunk Search Commands
Transforming Commands
Reporting Commands
Mapping and Single Value Commands

Lookups

Concept of data lookups, examples and lookup tables

Automatic Lookups

Configuring and Defining automatic lookups
Deploying lookups in reports and searches

Splunk Queries

Splunk Queries
Splunk Query Repository

Splunk Search Processing Language

Learn about the Search Processing Language

Analyzing, Calculating and Formatting results

Calculating and analysing results
Value conversion
Conditional statements and filtering calculated search results

Splunk Reports and Visualizations

Explore the available visualizations
Create charts and time charts
Omit null values and format results

Got a question for us? Please mention it in the comments section and we will get back to you.

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