In Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), notable event groups are used to logically group related notable events, which enhances the manageability and analysis of events:

A.Notable event groups combine independent notable events:This characteristic allows for the aggregation of related events into a single group, making it easier for users to manage and investigate related issues. By grouping events, users can focus on the broader context of an issue rather than getting lost in the details of individual events.

While notable event groups play a critical role in organizing and managing events in ITSI, they do not inherently allow users to adjust threshold settings, which is typically handled at the KPI or service level. Additionally, while notable event groups are utilized within the ITSI framework, the statement that they are created in the 'itsi_tracked_alerts' index might not fully capture the complexity of how event groups are managed and stored within the ITSI architecture.

A Multi-KPI alert in Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) is designed to trigger based on the conditions of multiple Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This type of alert is particularly useful when a single KPI's state is not sufficient to indicate an issue, but the correlation between multiple KPIs can provide a clearer picture of an emerging problem. The best use case for a Multi-KPI alert is therefore when comparing the values of two or more KPIs indicates an unusual condition is occurring. This allows for more nuanced and context-rich alerting mechanisms that can identify complex issues not detectable by monitoring individual KPIs. This approach isbeneficial in complex environments where the interplay between different performance metrics needs to be considered to accurately detect and diagnose issues.

In the context of Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), a Business Service often has Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) but might not have directly associated entities. Business Services represent high-level aggregations of organizational functions or processes and are typically measured by KPIs that reflect the performance of underlying technical services or components rather than direct infrastructure entities. For example, a Business Service might monitor overall transaction completion times or customer satisfaction scores, which are abstracted from the specific technical entities that underlie these metrics. This abstraction allows Business Services to provide a business-centric view of IT health and performance, focusing on outcomes rather than specific technical components.

When an anomaly is detected in Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), it typically generates a notable event that can be reviewed and managed in the Episode Review dashboard. The Episode Review is part of ITSI's Event Analytics framework and serves as a centralized location for reviewing, annotating, and managing notable events, including those generated by anomaly detection. This process enables IT operators and analysts to efficiently identify, prioritize, and respond to potential issues highlighted by the anomaly alerts. The integration of anomaly alerts into the Episode Review dashboard streamlines the workflow for managing and investigating these alerts within the broader context of IT service management and operational intelligence.

Notable events in Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) are primarily generated through scheduled correlation searches. These searches are designed to monitor data for specific conditions or patterns defined by the ITSI administrator, and when these conditions are met, a notable event is created. These correlation searches are often linked to specific services or groups of services, allowing for targeted monitoring and alerting based on the operational needs of those services. This mechanism enables ITSI to provide timely and relevant alerts that can be further investigated and managed through the Episode Review dashboard, facilitating efficient incident response and management within the IT environment.

It's a best practice to schedule maintenance windows with a 15- to 30-minute time buffer before and after you start and stop your maintenance work. 

In the Notable Events Review dashboard within Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), when working with a notable event group, users can set or adjust certain attributes at the individual event level or at the group level. These attributes include:

• Severity:The importance or impact level of the notable event or group, which can be adjusted to reflect the current assessment of the situation.
• Status:The current state of the notable event or group, such as "New," "In Progress," or "Resolved," indicating the progress in addressing the event or group.
• Owner:The user or team responsible for managing and resolving the notable event or group.

These settings allow for effective management and tracking of notable events, ensuring that they are appropriately prioritized, acted upon, and resolved by the responsible parties.

SA-IndexCreation is required on all indexers. For non-clustered, distributed environments, copy SA-IndexCreation to $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/ on individual indexers.

Time policies are user-defined threshold values to be used at different times of the day or week to account for changing KPI workloads. Time policies accommodate normal variations in usage across your services and improve the accuracy of KPI and service health scores. For example, if your organization’s peak activity is during the standard work week, you might create a KPI threshold time policy that accounts for higher levels of usage during work hours, and lower levels of usage during off-hours and weekends. The statement that applies when configuring time policies for KPI thresholds is:

• B. They are great if you expect normal behavior at 1:00 to be different than normal behavior at 5:00. This is true because time policies allow you to define different thresholdvalues for different time blocks, such as AM/PM, work hours/off hours, weekdays/weekends, and so on. This way, you can account for the expected variations in your KPI data based on the time of day or week.

The other statements do not apply because:

• A. A person can only configure 24 policies, one for each hour of the day. This is not true because you can configure more than 24 policies using different time block combinations, such as 3 hour block, 2 hour block, 1 hour block, and so on.
• C. If a person expects a KPI to change significantly through a cycle on a daily basis, don’t use it. This is not true because time policies are designed to handle KPIs that change significantly through a cycle on a daily basis, such as web traffic volume or CPU load percent.
• D. It is possible for multiple time policies to overlap. This is not true because you can only have one active time policy at any given time. When you create a new time policy, the previous time policy is overwritten and cannot be recovered.

References: Create time-based static KPI thresholds in ITSI

In Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), creating teams for each department and assigning services to those teams is an effective way to segregate data and ensure that information remains private between different groups within an organization. Teams in ITSI provide a mechanism for role-based access control, allowing administrators to define which users or groups have access to specific services, KPIs, and dashboards. By setting up teams corresponding to each department and then assigning services to these teams, ITSI canaccommodate multi-departmental use within the same instance while maintaining strict access controls. This ensures that each department can only view and interact with the data and services relevant to their operations, preserving confidentiality and data integrity across the organization.

In Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), notable events are created and managed within the context of its Event Analytics framework. These notable events are stored in theitsi_tracked_alertsindex. This index is specifically designed to hold the active notable events that are generated by ITSI's correlation searches, which are based on the conditions defined for various services and their KPIs. Notable events are essentially alerts or issues that need to be investigated and resolved. Theitsi_tracked_alertsindex enables efficient storage, querying, and management of these events, facilitating the ITSI's event management and review process. The other options, such asitsi_notable_archiveanditsi_notable_audit, serve different purposes, such as archiving resolved notable events and auditing changes to notable event configurations, respectively. Therefore, the correct answer for where active notable events are stored is theitsi_tracked_alertsindex.

In Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), teams are used to organize services, KPIs, and other objects within ITSI to facilitate access control and management:

B.Services should be assigned to the 'global' team if all users need access to it:The 'global' team in ITSI is a built-in concept that denotes universal accessibility. Assigning services to the 'global' team makes them accessible to all ITSI users, irrespective of their specific team memberships. This is useful for services that are relevant across the entire organization.

C.By default, all services are owned by the built-in 'global' team and administered by the 'itoa_admin' role:This default setting ensures that upon creation, services are accessible to administrators and can be further re-assigned or refined for access by specific teams as needed.

D.A new team admin role should be created for each team. The new role should inherit the 'itoa_team_admin' role:This best practice allows for granular access control and management within teams. Each team can have its own administrators with the appropriate level of access and permissions tailored to the needs of that team, derived from the capabilities of the 'itoa_team_admin' role.

The concept of adding 'itoa admin roles' with read-only permissions contradicts the typical use case for administrative roles, which usually require more than read-only access to manage services and entities effectively.

One of the recommended best practices for Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) installation is to avoid installing ITSI on search heads that already have Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) installed. This recommendation stems from potential resource conflicts and performance issues that can arise when both resource-intensive applications are deployed on the same instance. Both ITSI and ES are complex applications that require significant system resources to function effectively, and running them concurrently on the same search head can lead to degraded performance, conflicts in resource allocation, and potential stability issues. It's generally advised to segregate these applications onto separate Splunk instances to ensure optimal performance and stability for both platforms.

It's a deduplicated group of notable events occurring as part of a larger sequence, or an incident or period considered in isolation.

For Entity Cohesion anomaly detection in Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), the minimum number of entities a KPI must be split by is 2. Entity Cohesion as a method of anomaly detection focuses on identifying anomalies based on the deviation of an entity's behavior in comparison to other entities within the same group or cohort. By requiring a minimum of only two entities, ITSI allows for the comparison of entities to detect significant deviations in one entity's performance or behavior, which could indicate potential issues. This method leverages the idea that entities performing similar functions or within the same service should exhibit similar patterns of behavior, and significant deviations could be indicative of anomalies. The low minimum requirement of two entities ensures that this powerful anomaly detection feature can be utilized even in smaller environments.

In Splunk IT Service Intelligence (ITSI), the Service Health Score is a metric that provides a quantifiable measure of the overall health and performance of a service. The score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better health. The range for a normal Service Health score category is typically from 80 to 100. Scores within this range suggest that the service is performing well, with no significant issues affecting its health. This categorization helps IT and business stakeholders quickly assess the operational status of their services, enabling them to focus on services that may require attention or intervention due to lower health scores.