How do I connect to SQL Server

[darrylwilson]

I cant see any proper, useful help on this. The whole experience of SPLUNK is below par. I find myself going round in circles with tens of tabs opening in my browser.

Please can you tell me how i connect to SQL Server and produce a dashboard....

I have installed the db connector and universal forwarder. https://prd-p-8nzsqz9wrdlt.cloud.splunk.com/en-GB/manager/search/adddata/selectforwarders

Can you tell me what I need to do to get data in please (preferably in one document) All the help seems to pass you to webpage after webpage without actually answering my question.

So far my experience of splunk is no where as easy to use as powerbi.

Thanks
Darryl

[woodcock]

DBConnect (for the input use case, as opposed the lookup use case) should be installed on a Heavy Forwarder (not a Universal Forwarder). It requires that you install java and the appropriate 3rd-party ODBC connector. This can be arduous the first time and sometimes the correct connector is not available/clear and some experimentation is required to find one that works. The app is not very aggressively supported and is often tough to get working so you are not alone there. Also be aware that there are vast differences between version 2 and version 3 and some things that work on one version will not work on the other so be sure that you try both versions (but avoid v1 like the plague).

[richgalloway]

DB Connect doesn't work with the universal forwarder.

Since you use Splunk Cloud, you must use an on-premise Splunk heacy forwarder with the DB Connect app installed. DB Connect will get data from SQL Server and forward it to Splunk Cloud for indexing. From there, you can create dashboards.

To install a heavy forwarder, download Splunk Enterprise from splunk.com and install it on a local system. Then sign in to your Splunk Cloud instance and open the Universal Forwarder app. It will offer an app for you to download and install on the local Splunk server which will enable it to forward data to your indexers in the cloud.

[niketn]

@darrylwilson one of the options would be to use Splunk DB Connect app to setup JDBC connection to your SQL Server DB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPB2Lpd9ZAs.

This app supports connectivity to several other DBs not just Microsoft SQL Server. Refer to documentation for Supported DBs: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/DBX/latest/DeployDBX/Installdatabasedrivers#Supported_database...