Updated January 2023
Anyone in charge of ensuring their company’s data pipeline has the following five priorities in mind: reliability, security, speed, cost, and ownership.
In this article we discuss how enterprise managed OpenSearch provides peace of mind, especially having someone to call when a cluster fails in the middle of the night. And we also compare managed OpenSearch on your environment versus third party hosted.
Reliability for your OpenSearch cluster(s)
You want to have a number to call, a person responsible for your OpenSearch implementation. Someone, or even better a team of people, who are immersed in the running, management, and troubleshooting of OpenSearch clusters.
At Dattell, we have a trusted and unique approach to enterprise managed OpenSearch. We assign one of our engineers to be a client’s primary point of contact. This engineer gets to know the client’s individual team members, use case, and the ins-and-outs of their implementation. This engineer will be the one running the monitoring and alerting for your cluster and guiding optimizations and preventative maintenance.
And, importantly, this engineer is the one who is primarily responsible for on-call for that client. That means when a cluster fails at 10pm on a Saturday, you are immediately connected with the engineer that knows your implementation and can get to work immediately with troubleshooting and restoring the cluster.
Securing OpenSearch Cluster(s)
There are several important factors to consider when setting up security for your OpenSearch cluster.
Security plug-in. Firstly, the OpenSearch security plugin includes the full suite of security features you will need. And it even includes everything needed to meet highly regulated standards, such as HIPAA.
Specifically, OpenSearch supports access control for centralized user management, including LDAP, OpenID, and Okta. And it includes additional features for authentication and audit logging.
Access Control. When it comes to deciding on an enterprise managed OpenSearch provider, you will also want to consider the security trade-offs.
Using a hosted third-party provider will come with unknown security risks because the security of your clusters will be in the hands of that third party provider. You won’t have control over how many people in their company have access to your clusters, are unlikely to get full details on any breaches, and are at the mercy of any security protocol changes that the hosting provider decides to make.
Contrast the hosted approach with enterprise managed OpenSearch in your environment. Here the implementation is on your systems, controlled by your security protocols. You provide vpn access to individuals at the managed OpenSearch vendor (such as Dattell), not the company at large. This is a much more secure approach to managed services compared to third-party hosted OpenSearch.
Speed considerations
There are a number of considerations when it comes to improving the speed of your OpenSearch cluster.
Hardware. For instance, you’ll want to choose the right hardware and optimize the way that messages and indices are structured.
Environment. Regarding choosing a managed OpenSearch provider, choose one that supports OpenSearch in your environment to preserve the speed of your data infrastructure. Running OpenSearch alongside the rest of your infrastructure will also yield a faster response compared to when OpenSearch is hosted in a third party environment.
Response times. Another speed metric to consider is how quickly you get a response from your provider. We have a four-tier structure with response times guaranteed under 30 minutes (10 minutes in practice) for production level outages.
For Priority 4 issues we guarantee a 3-hour response time for low-stakes development issues or the like. That’s the longest you’ll ever have to wait to hear from us.
Cost of enterprise managed OpenSearch
The next consideration is cost. One thing to be aware of is with hosted options your provider isn’t incentivized to optimize your clusters. Instead, their pricing model can incentivize over-allocation to increase hosting costs.
Additionally, Dattell’s OpenSearch managed service includes one-on-one consultation, training, upgrades, audits, and any other service related to OpenSearch within our flat fee. There are no hidden costs or add-on fees for servicing and optimizing your OpenSearch implementation.
Ownership of your OpenSearch implementation
A final consideration is ownership. Owning your OpenSearch implementation is a real asset to your company. You control it. You can change managed services providers. It is yours to own.
With a hosted option you are at the mercy of your hosting provider and moving to a new host or bringing OpenSearch into your environment can be a cumbersome task. This can leave you settling for sub-optimal service from a host because they know it takes effort to move.
When using enterprise managed OpenSearch in your environment, you have the agility to change providers, move all management in-house, and on and on because you own the implementation. It’s your company’s asset.
TLDR on enterprise managed OpenSearch
- Having an enterprise managed OpenSearch provider provides 24/7 support and troubleshooting. It also increases the overall reliability of your OpenSearch implementation.
- Your OpenSearch clusters will be more secure if running in your environment, as compared to a third-party hosted option.
- Your data infrastructure will run faster if OpenSearch runs in your environment.
- Consider the cost structure and hidden fees for your managed provider.
- Owning OpenSearch in your environment gives you greater autonomy, leverage, and control, compared to third-party hosted OpenSearch.
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