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Detecting unused data

danielbb
Motivator

What is the best app to detect unused data? any suggestions?

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richgalloway
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

This is a challenge because how different users might define "unused" and because there is no tag to say if data is "used" or not.  A good starting place, at least for Splunk Cloud users, is the "Underutilized source type(s)" alert in the CMC.

Other users will need to craft a search that scrubs logs for sourcetype references and another search that compares those references to a list of all sourcetypes on the system.  It won't be perfect, either.  See .conf24 session PLA1837B for more info and SPL to get you started.

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If this reply helps you, Karma would be appreciated.

PickleRick
SplunkTrust
SplunkTrust

What do you mean by "unused data"? And what granularity do you have in mind?

You can search the Answers archives for similar questions - the general answers is there is no 100% sure way to find indexes/hosts/sources which are searched (and thus those which are not).

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