Elasticsearch: Information for Site Admins

Plan and manage the configuration and deployment of Elasticsearch, the platform's search/indexing tool.

Table of Contents

What is Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is a search engine based on Apache Lucene. It is robust, and allows fast indexing and responsive updating. It's an extremely popular tool in very broad use—a scalable search solution that uses JSON messaging over an HTTP interface with a native Java API.

In the Akana API Platform, Elasticsearch is run in standalone mode. Your installation will need to have Elasticsearch installed on at least one server. Just as with a relational database, you'll need to provide the software and hardware required. You can get started with a trial license.

All containers running the Akana API Platform can use Elasticsearch. A cluster is recommended for redundancy.

The deployment is via REST Client.

Administration of Elasticsearch is done with the configuration wizard in the Akana Administration Console.

For more information on Elasticsearch terminology, refer to the Elasticsearch glossary: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/glossary.html.

Note: Initially, Elasticsearch embedded mode was offered as a short-term option to help customers to migrate from Compass to Elasticsearch. It was never the recommended option, and is no longer supported.

How do I install and configure Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is configured outside of the Community Manager developer portal, in the Akana Administration Console. For instructions, see Installing and Configuring Elasticsearch (installation documentation).

Elasticsearch limitations: reserved characters

Elasticsearch has certain characters that are reserved. If any of these characters are included in search terms, they'll need to be escaped, or the search feature will not work as expected.

The reserved characters are:

+ - = && || > < ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \ /

To use one of these characters in search results, users must escape them with a leading backslash.

For example, to search for (123)app, a user would have to write this query: \(123\)app.

It's best if users steer clear of special characters in naming platform resources such as apps and APIs.

This information is documented for platform users here: How do I use special characters in search?