Splunk Core Certified Power User SPLK-1002 Exam Questions and Answers PDF

The correct answer is C. A macro is a portion of a search that can be reused in multiple places.

A macro is a way to reuse a piece of SPL code in different searches. A macro can be any part of a search, such as an eval statement or a search term, and does not need to be a complete command. A macro can also take arguments, which are variables that can be replaced by different values when the macro is called. A macro can also contain another macro within it, which is called a nested macro1.

To create a macro, you need to define its name, definition, arguments, and description in the Settings > Advanced Search > Search Macros page in Splunk Web or in the macros.conf file. To use a macro in a search, you need to enclose the macro name in backtick characters (`) and provide values for the arguments if any1.

For example, if you have a macro named my_macro that takes one argument named object and has the following definition:

search sourcetype= object

You can use it in a search by writing:

my_macro(web)

This will expand the macro and run the following SPL code:

search sourcetype=web

The benefits of using macros are that they can simplify complex searches, reduce errors, improve readability, and promote consistency1.

The other options are not correct because they describe other types of knowledge objects in Splunk, not macros. These objects are:

• A. An event type is a method of categorizing events based on a search. An event type assigns a label to events that match a specific search criteria. Event types can be used to filter and group events, create alerts, or generate reports2.
• B. A field alias is a way to associate an additional (new) name with an existing field name. A field alias can be used to normalize fields from different sources that have different names but represent the same data. Field aliases can also be used to rename fields for clarity or convenience3.
• D. An alert is a knowledge object that enables you to schedule searches for specific events and trigger actions when certain conditions are met. An alert can be used to monitor your data for anomalies, errors, or other patterns of interest and notify you or others when they occur4.

References:

• About event types
• About field aliases
• About alerts
• Define search macros in Settings
• Use search macros in searches

Tags are a type of knowledge object that enable you to assign descriptive keywords to events based on the values of their fields. Tags can help you to search more efficiently for groups of event data that share common characteristics, such as functionality, location, priority, etc. For example, you can tag all the IP addresses of your routers as router, and then search for tag=router to find all the events related to your routers. Tags can also help you to normalize data from different sources by using the same tag name for equivalent field values. For example, you can tag the field values error, fail, and critical as severity=high, and then search for severity=high to find all the events with high severity level2

1: Splunk Core Certified Power User Track, page 10. 2: Splunk Documentation, About tags and aliases.

This is because an event type is a knowledge object that assigns a user-defined name to a set of events that match a specific search criteria. For example, you can create an event type named successful_purchase for events that have sourcetype=access_combined, status=200, and action=purchase. Then, you can use eventtype=successful_purchase as a search term to find those events. You can also use event types to create alerts, reports, and dashboards. You can learn more about event types from the Splunk documentation1. The other options are incorrect because they do not describe what an event type is. A log level measurement is a field that indicates the severity of an event, such as info, warn, or error. A knowledge object that is applied before fields are extracted is a source type, which identifies the format and structure of the data. Either a log, a metric, or a trace is a type of data that Splunk can ingest and analyze, but not an event type.