1.3. Summary

Now that you’re all set up, let’s review what we explored in this chapter:

Elasticsearch is an open-source, distributed search engine built on top of Apache Lucene. The typical use case for Elasticsearch is to index large amounts of data so you can run full-text searches and real-time statistics on it.

Elasticsearch provides features that go well beyond full-text search; for example, you can tune the relevance of your searches and offer search suggestions.

To get started, download the package, unpack it if necessary, and run the Elasticsearch start script. For indexing and searching data, as well as for managing your cluster’s settings, use the JSON over HTTP API and get back a JSON reply.

You can also look at Elasticsearch as a NoSQL data store with real-time search and analytics capabilities. It’s document-oriented and scalable by default.

Elasticsearch automatically divides data into shards, which get balanced across the available servers in your cluster. This makes it easy to add and remove servers on the fly. Shards are also replicated, making your cluster fault-tolerant.

In chapter 2, you’ll get to know Elasticsearch even better by indexing and searching real data.