Splunk Fundamentals 1 Practice Exam

An alert is an action triggered by a _____________.

1. Selected field

2. Tag

3. Report

4. Saved search

The correct answer is: Saved search

An alert in Splunk is triggered by a saved search. A saved search is essentially a predefined search query that runs at scheduled intervals or in real-time to monitor data. When a saved search meets certain specified conditions—such as finding a predetermined number of events, error messages, or other criteria—it can trigger an alert. Saved searches are central to the alerting process because they encapsulate the logic that determines when an alert condition has been met. Once the saved search runs and evaluates the incoming data, if it detects a match or meets the criteria defined by the user, the associated alert action is executed, such as sending an email notification or executing a script. The other choices do not directly represent the mechanism through which alerts are triggered. For instance, a selected field or tag may be components of the data being analyzed but are not the basis for triggering an alert. A report, while it involves analyzing data and can be informed by the same search parameters or logic, is not specifically designed to trigger alerts but rather to present findings in a structured way.