Which three components are considered fundamental parts of Splunk?

The fundamental components of Splunk include forwarders, indexers, and search heads. Each of these plays a vital role in the architecture and operation of Splunk.

Forwarders are responsible for collecting and sending data to the indexers. They can be installed on data sources to gather logs and events, making them essential for ensuring that data is ingested into the Splunk environment.

The indexer is another critical component as it processes and indexes the data received from forwarders. It is responsible for storing the indexed data and enabling efficient search capabilities. Without the indexer, data ingested by forwarders would not be searchable or retrievable.

In addition to forwarders and indexers, search heads are necessary for querying and visualizing the data. They provide the interface through which users perform searches and generate reports, making search heads integral to the user's interaction with the data.

While the deployment server is useful for managing configurations and apps across various Splunk instances, it is not one of the fundamental components involved in data collection or indexing directly. Therefore, the inclusion of forwarders, indexers, and search heads forms the core architecture required to make Splunk functional and effective for log analytics and data querying.