This paper outlines a reference design combining FlashBlade, VMware, and Splunk SmartStore to dramatically improve performance and simplify scaling. It demonstrates 4x ingest performance compared to standard Splunk guidance, reduced storage complexity, and 75% fewer indexers for 2TB/day workloads. FlashBlade’s parallelism eliminates cold-bucket slowdowns, improves search speed, and supports large retention requirements. The architecture lowers TCO through reduced hardware, smaller footprint, higher efficiency, and streamlined operations aligned with modern observability needs.

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