What is the difference between a Splunk Universal Forwarder and a Heavy Forwarder?

The distinction between a Splunk Universal Forwarder and a Heavy Forwarder lies in their capabilities and functions. The Universal Forwarder is designed primarily for the efficient and secure forwarding of raw data to a Splunk indexer or another Splunk instance. It operates with minimal resource consumption, making it ideal for environments with many hosts that need to send data to a central Splunk instance without performing any processing or parsing on that data.

On the other hand, the Heavy Forwarder possesses additional capabilities. It not only forwards data but also has the capability to parse and index data before forwarding it. This allows for preprocessing of information, such as extracting fields and applying knowledge or transformations to the data, which can be beneficial for optimizing the indexing process on the receiving end.

The other options present misconceptions about the roles and functionalities of the forwarders. For instance, the Heavy Forwarder is not lightweight; rather, it is designed for more complex tasks and requires more resources. Additionally, the roles of alerting and searching do not directly correspond to the types of forwarders, as both can interact with alerts depending on how they are configured within the broader Splunk architecture.

Thus, the correct choice articulates the fact that the Universal Forwarder is limited to the raw