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OpenSearch Terms and Definitions

Published August 2023

In this post we round up the most searched for OpenSearch terms and definitions.

OpenSearch Node

An OpenSearch node is a single OpenSearch process, and the minimum number of nodes for a highly available OpenSearch cluster is three. 

OpenSearch Cluster

An OpenSearch cluster is one or more OpenSearch nodes with the same cluster identification. Learn about OpenSearch cluster optimization.

OpenSearch Index

An OpenSearch index is a collection of documents in OpenSearch.  Each index is split into shards.  Read about how to index OpenSearch.

OpenSearch Shard

OpenSearch shards enable parallelization of data processing across both a single and multiple OpenSearch nodes. By default, OpenSearch automatically manages shard allocation within the node(s). Optimizing shards is an important component of improving OpenSearch performance.

OpenSearch Replica

OpenSearch replicas serve as a backup for shards and also aid in search performance by providing additional capacity.   OpenSearch automatically creates five primary shards and one replica for every index.  You can add or remove replicas at any time to scale out query processing.

OpenSearch Port

The default OpenSearch port is 9200/tcp.  The OpenSearch port can be modified in the configuration file, opensearch.yml.

OpenSearch Query

OpenSearch queries are sub-divided into two categories:  leaf queries and compound queries.  OpenSearch leaf queries search for specific values within a field or field(s).  OpenSearch compound queries combine multiple queries together.

Check out these two posts on OpenSearch queries to learn more:

OpenSearch Automation

Ansible is an open source automation tool that can automate OpenSearch implementations, maintenance, and workflows. Learn more about how to automate OpenSearch with Ansible.

OpenSearch Pagination

OpenSearch pagination is the setting to return a maximum number of results.  This number changes frequently.  OpenSearch pagination can be changed by adding a size parameter to the search request.

Managed OpenSearch

Managed Opensearch provides 24/7 monitoring, support, and maintenance to maximize performance and uptime.  Managed OpenSearch is typically provided by a team of engineers who have extensive experience with OpenSearch management. Learn more about Managed OpenSearch and what sets our enterprise OpenSearch apart.

Hosted OpenSearch

Hosted OpenSearch is a type of Managed OpenSearch where the service provider hosts their clients’ clusters in the service provider’s own environment.  Hosted OpenSearch tends to increase latency and cost more than when OpenSearch is run in a client’s own environment.  It also opens up the client to additional security risk.

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Published by

Dattell - Kafka & Elasticsearch Support

Benefit from the experience of our Kafka, Pulsar, Elasticsearch, and OpenSearch expert services to help your team deploy and maintain high-performance platforms that scale. We support Kafka, Elasticsearch, and OpenSearch both on-prem and in the cloud, whether on stand alone clusters or running within Kubernetes. We’ve saved our clients $100M+ over the past six years. Without our guidance companies tend to overspend on hardware or purchase unnecessary licenses. We typically save clients multiples more money than our fees cost in addition to building, optimizing, and supporting fault-tolerant, highly available architectures.