Splunk is a popular data analysis and visualization platform that allows users to collect, search, analyze, and visualize machine-generated data in real-time. The platform provides several data ingestion options to collect and index data from different sources.
Here are some of the popular data ingestion methods in Splunk:
- Splunk Forwarder: Splunk forwarder is an agent that runs on the source machine and collects data. It then forwards the data to the Splunk indexer. The forwarder can collect data from log files, directories, scripts, APIs, and other sources.
- REST API: Splunk also provides REST APIs to collect data from different sources. Users can use the Splunk REST API to collect data from custom applications, databases, and other systems.
- Syslog: Syslog is a standard protocol for collecting log messages from different devices. Splunk can collect data through Syslog protocol by configuring a Syslog receiver in Splunk.
- File upload: Users can upload data files directly to Splunk for indexing. Splunk supports several file formats, including CSV, JSON, and XML.
- Windows Event Log: Splunk can collect data from the Windows Event Log by configuring the Splunk universal forwarder on Windows machines.
- Database connectivity: Splunk supports connectivity with several databases, including MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server. Users can use Splunk DB Connect to collect data from these databases.
- Hadoop data ingestion: Splunk also provides integration with Hadoop, which allows users to collect data from Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and process it in Splunk.
In summary, Splunk provides several data ingestion options to collect data from various sources. Users can choose the best method depending on their use case and data source.