Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

Which method sends events to Splunk without using a forwarder?

1. HTTP Event Collector (HEC)

2. Universal Forwarder

3. File Monitor

4. Data Pipeline

The correct answer is: HTTP Event Collector (HEC)

The HTTP Event Collector (HEC) is designed to send events to Splunk over HTTP or HTTPS without the need for a forwarder. This method provides a simple and efficient way to ingest data from virtually any source that can send HTTP requests, such as web applications, cloud services, or custom scripts. HEC allows users to send both structured and unstructured data, making it versatile for various data types and structures. By utilizing HEC, developers can integrate with Splunk easily, bypassing the need for traditional forwarder setups, which may require installation and configuration on system endpoints. This is particularly beneficial in scenarios where deploying a forwarder is impractical or where rapid ingestion of events from web applications is needed. In contrast, the Universal Forwarder is a lightweight version of Splunk that does require installation on the source machine to forward logs and events to the main Splunk instance, making it less suitable for direct HTTP ingestion. File Monitors are used to monitor and ingest files on a filesystem, which again requires a component to be set up on the machine. A Data Pipeline typically involves more complex data ingestion and processing frameworks, which might also rely on underlying forwarders or additional infrastructure.