To improve Splunk performance, parallelIngestionPipelines setting can be adjusted on which of the following components in the Splunk architecture? (Select all that apply.)

Question

Options

• AIndexers
• BForwarders
• CSearch head
• DCluster master

Explanation

Correct answers: A (Indexers) and B (Forwarders)

The parallelIngestionPipelines setting in server.conf increases data throughput by allowing multiple ingestion pipelines to run simultaneously - it belongs to components that actually process and ingest data. Indexers are the primary target, as they receive, parse, and write events to disk, and adding pipelines directly boosts their indexing capacity. Heavy Forwarders also qualify because they perform full data processing (parsing, routing) like a mini-indexer before forwarding - this setting is valid for them too.

Why the distractors are wrong: Search heads (C) run searches against already-indexed data; they have no ingestion pipeline to parallelize. The Cluster Master/Manager node (D) is a coordination and configuration service for indexer clusters - it doesn't ingest or process event data at all.

Memory tip: Think "ingestion pipelines = data-touching components." If a component's job is to receive and chew through raw data, it can benefit from parallel pipelines. Search heads and the cluster master are purely control/query-plane components - no raw data flows through them.

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