Which of the following is optional, but highly recommended to include in a datapoint?

In Splunk Observability Cloud a datapoint must contain a metric name, a numeric value, and a timestamp. The metric type field (gauge, counter, cumulative-counter, etc.) enriches the datapoint but is not required for ingestion; the documentation labels it “optional but strongly recommended”.

A. Metric name is mandatory; without it, the datapoint is rejected.

B. If no timestamp is supplied, Splunk adds the current time, so it is effectively required for precision.

C. A numeric value is required; otherwise the datapoint is invalid.

1. Splunk Observability Cloud Docs, “Metric types and metadata”, Section “type”, para 1 (docs.splunk.com/Observability/metrics/metrictypes.html)

2. Splunk Docs, “Data point structure”, Table 1 “Required fields”, v2023-10-15