Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect Practice Test

What is the significance of a search factor in an indexer cluster?

1. It determines how many indexers can be unreachable

2. It affects the speed of data ingestion

3. It defines the total number of searchable copies of data

4. It allows data replication for backup purposes

The correct answer is: It defines the total number of searchable copies of data

The significance of a search factor in an indexer cluster lies in its role in defining the total number of searchable copies of data. In a clustered environment, maintaining multiple copies of data ensures that even if some indexers are down or unreachable, users can still perform searches and retrieve their data. This factor directly influences data availability and redundancy. For example, if the search factor is set to three, there will be three copies of the data distributed across different indexers, which enhances fault tolerance and search performance as users can access more than one copy if needed. This configuration helps ensure that data remains accessible and that query load can be balanced across the available copies. The other options primarily touch on aspects like data ingestion speed, the number of indexers that can be down, and backup-related replication, but they do not accurately capture the role of the search factor specifically in terms of maintaining the required number of searchable data copies.