Which component of Splunk is used mainly for data forward and collection?

The Universal Forwarder is primarily designed for data forward and collection in the Splunk ecosystem. Its lightweight nature allows it to run on various devices, including servers, and efficiently collect and forward log data to the Splunk indexer. This makes it an essential component for organizations looking to gather data from multiple sources and ensure that it is ingested into Splunk for analysis.

In contrast, the Search Head is responsible for processing search requests and distributing searches across indexers, while the Indexer handles the storage, indexing, and retrieval of data. The Heavy Forwarder, on the other hand, has more advanced processing capabilities than the Universal Forwarder and is used for scenarios where data needs to be transformed or processed before being sent to the indexer. However, for simple data collection and forwarding, the Universal Forwarder is the most appropriate component.