Machine data has increased EXPONENTIALLY over the past decade, thanks to the advent of IoT devices and the increasing number of machines in the IT infrastructure. Machine data contains a significant amount of valuable business-critical information that can enhance efficiency, productivity, and visibility. This is where Splunk comes in. 

Splunk was founded in 2003 to derive insights information from large volumes of machine data, and since then, Splunk's skills have become increasingly sought-after. The tool is one of the top DevOps solutions on the market, and so are its experts. Therefore, to secure a Splunk job, you MUST be capable of acing the interview. 

Don't worry, we’ve compiled the list of top Splunk interview questions and answers that can help you not only improve your Splunk skills but also land the job you are looking for. Let's first understand what Splunk is. 

Splunk is basically a software platform that provides users with the ability to access, ANALYZE, and visualize machine-generated data from multiple sources, including hardware devices, networks, servers, IoT devices, and other sources. The machine data is analyzed and processed, and subsequently transformed into powerful operational intelligence that offers some real-time insight. It is widely used to search, visualize, monitor, and report enterprise data. Among Splunk's many capabilities are application management, security and compliance, business and web ANALYTICS, etc.

Splunk relies on its indexes to store all of its data, so it does not need any DATABASE to do so. Splunk gathered all relevant information into one central index, making it easy to search for specific data within a massive amount of data. Moreover, machine data is extremely important for monitoring, understanding, and optimizing machine performance. 

In this article, we have created a list of Splunk interview questions and answers for Freshers and Experienced candidates so you can prepare for your job interview and move closer to achieving your dream career.