Which component of Splunk is responsible for collecting data?

The component of Splunk responsible for collecting data is the Splunk Forwarder. The Splunk Forwarder acts as an agent installed on the source machines where data is generated. It collects and optionally preprocesses the data before sending it to the Splunk Indexer for storage and further indexing. This enables organizations to centralize their logging and monitoring efforts by efficiently collecting data from various sources, such as servers, applications, and network devices.

In contrast, the Splunk Indexer processes and stores the incoming data, making it available for searching and analysis. The Splunk Dashboard provides a graphical interface to display data visualizations and insights derived from the indexed data, while the Splunk Search Head allows users to perform searches and interact with the data stored in the Indexer. These components serve different purposes within the Splunk architecture but do not directly collect data from the sources. Thus, the Splunk Forwarder is uniquely positioned to perform the crucial task of data collection.