What characterizes a warm bucket in Splunk?

A warm bucket in Splunk is characterized by its ability to store recent data that is still available for reading but is no longer being actively written to. This transition from the hot state to the warm state generally occurs when the data has been indexed but is not receiving any incoming new data, making it read-only.

In Splunk’s architecture, warm buckets are part of the data lifecycle, where data moves from a hot state, where it is actively written, to a warm state. The aging process of data eventually leads to its transfer to cold storage, where access may be slower but is still possible. Warm buckets are designed to balance performance and storage efficiency, allowing quick access to relatively recent data without the overhead associated with handling continuous writes.

Consequently, the characteristics of the warm bucket ensure that it serves as an efficient point for accessing recent data after it has been indexed while eliminating the need for write operations that occur in the hot bucket.