Splunk Enterprise is an elastic, universal engine created to give advanced search, investigation, and visualization of machine-generated operational data in real-time. One of its features is the on-the-fly conversion of data feeds from all sorts of data sources into actionable information. As a result of this, incident responders and security teams perfectly coordinate their efforts in preventing and mitigating a surge of cyber incidents. The minor update release of the 9.0.x line, which has partially revolutionized into a technology of cloud-native, cloud-first, and security to the next level. This version will hit the market as a maintenance one, where the primary focus will be on preserving stability and reliability of the 9.0 version with essential bug fixes and security upgrades that guarantee a quality and solid deployment.

Moreover, Splunk Enterprise is developed to handle the situation of merging data from all possible sources, through networking devices and software. The captured data is indexed, which means that it is made visible and can be searched in real-time. Users can perform complicated queries with great accuracy using the Search Processing Language (SPL), create alerts, design dashboards, and produce reports.

Version 9.0.3 accomplishes the “Splunk Platform” aim, which emphasizes next to the cloud environment, as it is prepared being used both by on-premises and cloud endeavours. It is exclusively created to work hand in hand with the data that enterprises possess. In this process, it singularly provides a simplified view, which monitors the IT infrastructure, fuels the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems with Splunk Enterprise Security and lastly provides the needed intelligence for driving business analytics.

Well, 9.0.3 features all major features present in 9.0 but, quite obviously, its value lies in their improved performance. These areas are:

Smarter Data Storage: As one of the advanced features enabling smartest for indexes, further stabilization is now made possible, helping to separate both computer and storage tasks and meanwhile maintaining a top capability search feature.

Refine Workload Allocation: Ensuring that performance is not impacted by ad hoc searches, this edition guarantees a sharp tensile flexibility over the allocation of computing resources to various tasks (searches, reports, ingest).

Improvement in Federated Searches: Thus, users can find one way to fetter search for Splunk with different deployments (on-premises and cloud) with one interface, unlike data warehouses. Privacy is protected by this feature toning down information silos.

Security Enhancements: Being a patch version, 9.0.3 addresses security weaknesses particular to its predecessor versions, so the OS is secure for sensitive data storage as it should be. This, however, consists in fixing the authentication and confidentiality issues.

Fixes, Stability and Bugs: The most important function of the v9.0.3 is to figure out the problems registered from version 9.0.0, 9.0.1, and 9.0.2. This makes it sure that there is less downtime, no crashes, smooth upgrades, and to cut the story short, predictable user experience.

Splunk Enterprise 9.0.3 is elementary as installing a brand new appliance:

Download: Make sure that you have the installation bundle that is compatible with your operating system from the official Splunk website. Once, you manufacturer demanded an original license to operate Splunk. No worries, you can have a 60-day free trial to practice at no charge.

Load Installer:
Linux: Extract the .tar.gz or .tg archive and run the “Splunk” binary file, or apply the .rpm/.debt that facilitates the installation, among other things.
Windows: Execute the .msi file after which just follow the hints.

Commence Splunk: After your installed Splunk, you need to start up the Splunk service. In this process, go to the path /home/Splunk/bin folder and on the console run ./Splunk start. In the Windows case, the service will be auto-started.

Initial Setup: Just go to your internet browser and enter the location of the database server, which might look like this: http://<your-server>:8000. The account configuration helper will help you through the main stages while administration account getting created and setting up configuration parameters.

Set Data Input: Once you have been successfully authenticated, go to the menu “Settings” > “Data Inputs” and click on “Add Data Inputs”. You can upload files by clicking on “Select Files” or list a directory and click on “Open”.

The system requirements of any installation are one of the basic things that need to be checked beforehand. The requirements of Splunk Enterprise 9.0.3 are parallel with those of the whole 9.0 series:

Operating Systems: Supported 64-bit Windows Server system (2016 and later), Linux (RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, SUSE) and macOS (development and demo only).

Hardware: About 8-16 GB (with the possibility to scale up for ambitious data volumes) of RAM to use as a server memory. FTTB (first to the best) room disk space is necessary for installing Splunk and keeping indexes (usually some hundreds of GBs up to some TB+).

Software: A known browser that can be compatible with Splunk without glitches and an updated Java engine for those who are planning to use Splunk apps.

Network: Communication ports between the indexer (source and forwarder data) and the search functions (search data set) shall be opened on the national firewall (e.g., 8089, 9997). Furthermore, monitoring traffic at the default web interface port number has to be assured (e.g., 8000).

It is always recommended to consult the official Splunk documentation to have a precise and up-to-date reference concerning your server requirements.