Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

Which configuration determines how many hot buckets a new index defaults to?

1. Cluster configuration

2. Performance tuning settings

3. Index settings

4. Retention policy settings

The correct answer is: Index settings

The number of hot buckets that a new index defaults to is determined by index settings. In Splunk, each index has specific configurations that govern its behavior, including how many hot buckets it will start with. These index settings are typically found in the indexes.conf file, where administrators can define parameters like 'frozenTimePeriodInSecs', 'maxHotBuckets', and others that directly control the bucket lifecycle and performance. Hot buckets are the initial storage for incoming data before they roll into warm and cold states. Having the right configuration for hot buckets is crucial for performance and data ingestion rates, especially when handling large volumes of data. Thus, the ability to set this parameter appropriately supports efficient indexing and access to the most recent data. In contrast, cluster configuration relates more to how Splunk handles multiple instances in a clustered environment, performance tuning settings focus on optimizing system resources for searching and indexing, and retention policy settings are about managing data lifecycle and deletion, rather than specifying the number of hot buckets at the outset.