topic Re: TA installation in distributed environment in All Apps and Add-ons

TA installation in distributed environment

chrisdev — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:18:32 GMT

I have a simple TA that makes a request to a REST endpoint and writes the data to the index (no UI associated with this, only indexing). Im exploring a distributed Splunk environment (with a forwarder, indexer and search head) but im unsure where to install the TA. On the forwarder, the indexer or somewhere else?

Reading similar forum posts it appears that the answer can depend on the TA, however what about a TA decides in what environment it should be installed?

Re: TA installation in distributed environment

isoutamo — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 18:44:47 GMT

in normal case on distributed environment all TAs which get data into indexers should installed on (heavy) forwarders.
r. Ismo

Re: TA installation in distributed environment

ephemeric — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:42:56 GMT

It also depends on your network topography. The TA must be able to connect to said REST API.

There is "search time" and "index time" and if your TA does the latter, it belongs on an indexer.

Nothing precludes your TA being installed on a SUF and writing to a file waiting to be forwarded...

Re: TA installation in distributed environment

isoutamo — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 04:12:51 GMT

That’s true. If TA has search time REST calls or something similar then it should be placed on SH layer. But in those cases, if it doing indexing also it needs to install indexing / forwarder layer too. Personally I tried to avoid installing anything to indexing layer and prefer always dedicated HFs, as almost all changes to TAs cause rebooting or other ways disturbing searches. Only exemptions are indexing definitions which must be on indexing layer.

shortly:

search time activities-> SH layer
index definitions -> indexer layer via CM
indexing activities -> separate HF (usually only into one node)

more https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/AddOns/released/Overview/Distributedinstall

r. Ismo

Re: TA installation in distributed environment

ephemeric — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:22:35 GMT

I like it! Well said.