Splunk is a server-based software application that collects, indexes and stores machine-generated data for trending, analysing and reporting. Splunk software is installed on a dedicated forwarder device or computer. This device is then connected to the target machine or server that it is collecting data from. The data is then sent to Splunk over the network and is stored in a database. Once the data is stored it can be used to perform various types of monitoring and reporting.