Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect Practice Test

When planning a search head cluster, which statement is correct?

1. All search heads must use the same operating system.

2. All search heads must be members of the cluster.

3. The search head captain must be the largest search head.

4. All indexers must be part of the underlying indexer cluster.

The correct answer is: All search heads must be members of the cluster.

When planning a search head cluster, it is essential to understand that all search heads must be members of the cluster to ensure proper functionality and coordination. This membership facilitates the shared configuration, user interface consistency, and workload management across the search heads. In a clustered environment, search heads work together to balance the search load, ensure high availability, and improve performance by distributing user queries among all available search heads. The other statements do not accurately represent the requirements or best practices for configuring a search head cluster. While having the same operating system may simplify management, it is not a strict requirement for a search head cluster. The size of a search head does not determine the captain; rather, the captain is elected based on specific criteria such as availability and stability, not simply size. Lastly, it's important to note that while indexers should ideally be part of an indexer cluster, this does not directly apply to the configuration or requirements of search head clusters. Therefore, the requirement for membership in the cluster is both crucial and correct.