SPLK-4001 Splunk O11y Cloud Certified Metrics User Exam Questions and Answers

The correct answer is D. Each data marker represents the sum of API calls in the hour leading up to the data marker.

The metric demo.trans.count is a cumulative counter metric, which means that it represents the total number of API calls since the start of the measurement. A cumulative counter metric can be used to measure the rate of change or the sum of events over a time period1

The chart below shows the metric demo.trans.count with a one-hour rollup and a line chart type. A rollup is a way to aggregate data points over a specified time interval, such as one hour, to reduce the number of data points displayed on a chart. A line chart type connects the data points with a line to show the trend of the metric over time2

Each data marker on the chart represents the sum of API calls in the hour leading up to the data marker. This is because the rollup function for cumulative counter metrics is sum by default, which means that it adds up all the data points in each time interval. For example, the data marker at 10:00 AM shows the sum of API calls from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM3

To learn more about how to use metrics and charts in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can refer to these documentations123.

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/metrics.html#Metric-types 2: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/charts.html#Data-resolution-and-rollups-in-charts 3: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/charts.html#Rollup-functions-for-metric-types

The alert recipients tab specifies where notification messages should be sent when alerts are triggered or cleared. The options that can be used are:

Invoke a webhook URL. This option allows you to send a HTTP POST request to a custom URL that can perform various actions based on the alert information. For example, you can use a webhook to create a ticket in a service desk system, post a message to a chat channel, or trigger another workflow1

Send an SMS message. This option allows you to send a text message to one or more phone numbers when an alert is triggered or cleared. You can customize the message content and format using variables and templates2

Send to email addresses. This option allows you to send an email notification to one or more recipients when an alert is triggered or cleared. You can customize the email subject, body, and attachments using variables and templates. You can also include information from search results, the search job, and alert triggering in the email3

Therefore, the correct answer is A, C, and D.

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Alert/Webhooks 2: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Alert/SMSnotification 3: https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Alert/Emailnotification

According to the Splunk O11y Cloud Certified Metrics User Track document1, a single-instance dashboard is a type of dashboard that displays charts and information for a single instance of a service or host. You can use a single-instance dashboard to monitor the performance and health of a specific server, such as the one that is restarting due to power supply issues. You can also create detectors for the metrics that are relevant to the server, such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, and uptime. Therefore, option A is correct.

According to the Splunk O11y Cloud Certified Metrics User Track document1, cloning a detector creates a copy of the detector that you can modify without affecting the original detector. You can change the metric, filter, and signal settings of the cloned detector. However, the new signals that you add to the cloned detector will not be reflected in the original detector, nor in the original chart that the detector was based on. Therefore, option D is correct.

Option A is incorrect because the new signals will not be reflected in the original detector. Option B is incorrect because the new signals will not be reflected in the original chart. Option C is incorrect because you can monitor all of the new signals that you add to the cloned detector.

The chart visualization types that are unaffected by changing the time picker on a dashboard are:

Single Value: A single value chart shows the current value of a metric or an expression. It does not depend on the time range of the dashboard, but only on the data resolution and rollup function of the chart1

List: A list chart shows the values of a metric or an expression for each dimension value in a table format. It does not depend on the time range of the dashboard, but only on the data resolution and rollup function of the chart2

Therefore, the correct answer is A and D.

To learn more about how to use different chart visualization types in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can refer to this documentation3.

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/charts.html#Single-value 2: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/charts.html#List 3: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/charts.html

According to the web search results1, subscribing to a built-in detector is a way to receive alerts and notifications from Splunk Observability Cloud when certain criteria are met. A built-in detector is a detector that is automatically created and configured by Splunk Observability Cloud based on the data from your integrations, such as AWS, Kubernetes, or OpenTelemetry1. To subscribe to a built-in detector, you need to do the following steps:

Find the built-in detector that you want to subscribe to. You can use the metric finder or the dashboard groups to locate the built-in detectors that are relevant to your data sources1.

Hover over the built-in detector and click the Subscribe button. This will open a dialog box where you can configure your subscription settings1.

Choose an outbound notification channel from the drop-down menu. This is where you can specify how you want to receive the alert notifications from the built-in detector. You can choose from various channels, such as email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhook, and so on2. You can also create a new notification channel by clicking the + icon2.

Enter the notification details for the selected channel. This may include your email address, Slack channel name, PagerDuty service key, webhook URL, and so on2. You can also customize the notification message with variables and markdown formatting2.

Click Save. This will subscribe you to the built-in detector and send you alert notifications through the chosen channel when the detector triggers or clears an alert.

Therefore, option C is correct.

According to the web search results, ephemeral infrastructure is a term that describes instances that are auto-scaled up or down, or are brought up with new code versions and discarded or recycled when the next code version is deployed1. Splunk Observability Cloud has a feature that allows you to create detectors for ephemeral infrastructure without sending false notifications of instances being down2. To use this feature, you need to do the following steps:

Create the detector as usual, by selecting the metric or dimension that you want to monitor and alert on, and choosing the alert condition and severity level.

Select Alert settings, then select Ephemeral Infrastructure. This will enable a special mode for the detector that will automatically clear alerts for instances that are expected to be terminated.

Enter the expected lifetime of an instance in minutes. This is the maximum amount of time that an instance is expected to live before being replaced by a new one. For example, if your instances are replaced every hour, you can enter 60 minutes as the expected lifetime.

Save the detector and activate it.

With this feature, the detector will only trigger alerts when an instance stops reporting a metric unexpectedly, based on its expected lifetime. If an instance stops reporting a metric within its expected lifetime, the detector will assume that it was terminated on purpose and will not trigger an alert. Therefore, option B is correct.

According to the Splunk O11y Cloud Certified Metrics User Track document1, percentages and ratios are useful for calculating the proportion of one metric to another, such as cache hits to cache misses, or successful requests to failed requests. You can use the percentage() or ratio() functions in SignalFlow to compute these values and display them in charts. For example, to calculate the cache hit rate for a service, you can use the following SignalFlow code:

percentage(counters(“cache.hits”), counters(“cache.misses”))

This will return the percentage of cache hits out of the total number of cache attempts. You can also use the ratio() function to get the same result, but as a decimal value instead of a percentage.

ratio(counters(“cache.hits”), counters(“cache.misses”))

The correct answer is C. Create a plot C using the formula (A/B-l) and add a scale: 100 function to express the rate of change as a percentage.

To calculate the rate of change in latency, you need to compare the current latency (plot A) with the latency a week ago (plot B). One way to do this is to use the formula (A/B-l), which gives you the ratio of the current latency to the previous latency minus one. This ratio represents how much the current latency has increased or decreased relative to the previous latency. For example, if the current latency is 200 ms and the previous latency is 100 ms, then the ratio is (200/100-l) = 1, which means the current latency is 100% higher than the previous latency1

To express the rate of change as a percentage, you need to multiply the ratio by 100. You can do this by adding a scale: 100 function to the formula. This function scales the values of the plot by a factor of 100. For example, if the ratio is 1, then the scaled value is 100%2

To create a plot C using the formula (A/B-l) and add a scale: 100 function, you need to follow these steps:

Select plot A and plot B from the Metric Finder.

Click on Add Analytics and choose Formula from the list of functions.

In the Formula window, enter (A/B-l) as the formula and click Apply.

Click on Add Analytics again and choose Scale from the list of functions.

In the Scale window, enter 100 as the factor and click Apply.

You should see a new plot C that shows the rate of change in latency as a percentage.

To learn more about how to use formulas and scale functions in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can refer to these documentations34.

1: https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/percentage-change.html 2: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/analytics.html#Scale 3: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/analytics.html#Formula 4: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/analytics.html#Scale

The required components in the configuration of a data point are:

Metric Name: A metric name is a string that identifies the type of measurement that the data point represents, such as cpu.utilization, memory.usage, or response.time. A metric name is mandatory for every data point, and it must be unique within a Splunk Observability Cloud organization1

Timestamp: A timestamp is a numerical value that indicates the time at which the data point was collected or generated. A timestamp is mandatory for every data point, and it must be in epoch time format, which is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC1

Value: A value is a numerical value that indicates the magnitude or quantity of the measurement that the data point represents. A value is mandatory for every data point, and it must be compatible with the metric type of the data point1

Therefore, the correct answer is A, C, and D.

To learn more about how to configure data points in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can refer to this documentation1.

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/gdi/metrics/metrics.html#Data-points

The correct answer is A. Dimensions.

Dimensions are metadata in the form of key-value pairs that are sent along with the metrics at the time of ingest. They provide additional information about the metric, such as the name of the host that sent the metric, or the location of the server. Along with the metric name, they uniquely identify a metric time series (MTS)1

Changes to dimensions result in a new MTS, because they create a different combination of metric name and dimensions. For example, if you change the hostname dimension from host1 to host2, you will create a new MTS for the same metric name1

Properties, sources, and tags are other types of metadata that can be applied to existing MTSes after ingest. They do not contribute to uniquely identify an MTS, and they do not create a new MTS when changed2

To learn more about how to use metadata in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can refer to this documentation2.

1: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/metrics-and-metadata/metrics.html#Dimensions 2: https://docs.splunk.com/Observability/metrics-and-metadata/metrics-dimensions-mts.html

According to the Splunk Observability Cloud documentation1, detectors operate at the native resolution of the metric or dimension that they monitor, with some exceptions for transformations or timeshifts. The native resolution is the frequency at which the data points are reported by the source. For example, if a metric is reported every 10 seconds, the detector will evaluate the metric every 10 seconds. The native resolution ensures that the detector uses the most granular and accurate data available for alerting.

The correct answer is D. Map, Nodes, Workloads, Node Detail, Workload Detail, Pod Detail, Container Detail.

The built-in Kubernetes Navigator is a feature of Splunk Observability Cloud that provides a comprehensive and intuitive way to monitor the performance and health of Kubernetes environments. It includes the following views:

Map: A graphical representation of the Kubernetes cluster topology, showing the relationships and dependencies among nodes, pods, containers, and services. You can use the map to quickly identify and troubleshoot issues in your cluster1

Nodes: A tabular view of all the nodes in your cluster, showing key metrics such as CPU utilization, memory usage, disk usage, and network traffic. You can use the nodes view to compare and analyze the performance of different nodes1

Workloads: A tabular view of all the workloads in your cluster, showing key metrics such as CPU utilization, memory usage, network traffic, and error rate. You can use the workloads view to compare and analyze the performance of different workloads, such as deployments, stateful sets, daemon sets, or jobs1

Node Detail: A detailed view of a specific node in your cluster, showing key metrics and charts for CPU utilization, memory usage, disk usage, network traffic, and pod count. You can also see the list of pods running on the node and their status. You can use the node detail view to drill down into the performance of a single node2

Workload Detail: A detailed view of a specific workload in your cluster, showing key metrics and charts for CPU utilization, memory usage, network traffic, error rate, and pod count. You can also see the list of pods belonging to the workload and their status. You can use the workload detail view to drill down into the performance of a single workload2

Pod Detail: A detailed view of a specific pod in your cluster, showing key metrics and charts for CPU utilization, memory usage, network traffic, error rate, and container count. You can also see the list of containers within the pod and their status. You can use the pod detail view to drill down into the performance of a single pod2

Container Detail: A detailed view of a specific container in your cluster, showing key metrics and charts for CPU utilization, memory usage, network traffic, error rate, and log events. You can use the container detail view to drill down into the performance of a single container2

To learn more about how to use Kubernetes Navigator in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can refer to this documentation3.

1: https://docs.splunk.com/observability/infrastructure/monitor/k8s-nav.html#Kubernetes-Navigator 2: https://docs.splunk.com/observability/infrastructure/monitor/k8s-nav.html#Detail-pages 3: https://docs.splunk.com/observability/infrastructure/monitor/k8s-nav.html