Splunk Enterprise Certified Admin Practice Test

What happens to data once it is written to disk during the indexing phase?

1. It can be modified

2. It is deleted upon completion

3. It cannot be changed

4. It is compressed for storage

The correct answer is: It cannot be changed

In the indexing phase of Splunk, once data is written to disk, it becomes immutable, which means it cannot be altered or changed in any way. This immutability ensures the integrity of the data throughout its lifecycle in the Splunk environment. Having immutable data is crucial for maintaining accurate audit trails, ensuring that logs and other indexed information remain dependable over time. Other operations related to the data, such as searches and analytics, can be performed without affecting the original indexed data. This allows users to run queries, generate reports, and perform analysis without the risk of inadvertently altering the underlying data. While data compression and other storage optimizations can occur within Splunk, the key aspect of the indexing process is that the data once written is fixed and cannot be modified. This principle of immutability is fundamental to data integrity in applications dealing with log and event data.