introduction to azure search

April 16

Introduction to Azure Search

Radoslav GatevSoftware Consultant@Accediabg.linkedin.com/in/radoslavgatev

Why Search Is Important?

Why Search Is Important?

Azure SearchA search-as-a-service solution allowing developers to incorporate great search experiences into applications without managing infrastructure or needing to become search experts.

ScenariosIf an app offers lots of content your users will be more effective searching instead of browsing• Ecommerce• Social content• Line-of-business applications

Using Azure Search

Create service

Create index

Index data

Search

Tune result

s

PlaceFinder

1. Provisioning Search ServicesSearch service is:• Scope of capacity, billing, authentication• Managed through the portal or

management API• May have one or more indexes• Service name -> API root URL

https://mysvc.search.windows.net

2. Defining indexesSearch index is:• A searchable collection of documents• Has a schema• Has various options, e.g. scoring profiles,

CORS• Index name -> API URL:

https://mysvc.search.windows.net/indexes/myindex

Index schemaList of fields and their configuration:• Data types: string, int, double, datetime,

boolean, geo-point• Single valued or collections

Each field can be used for:• Search• Suggestions• Filters

• Sorting• Facets• Results

API: Create an indexPOST /indexes/myindex?api-version=2015-02-28-PreviewHost: mysvc.search.windows.netapi-key: [YOUR_ADMIN_KEY]Content-Type: application/json

{ "fields": [ {"name": "placeId","type": "Edm.String", "key": true}, {"name": "nameBg", "type": "Edm.String"}, {"name": "type", "type": "Edm.String" } ], "corsOptions": { "allowedOrigins": [ "*" ] }}

3. Indexing data• Data is indexed in batches

o Up to 1000 operations: upload, merge, delete or mergeOrUpload

o POST to …/indexes/myindex/docs/index• A success response ensures durability

o Client needs to check response body for individual operation status

• Data will be searchable a few seconds latero The data must be indexed, depends on how busy the

system is

API: Batch UploadPOST /indexes/myindex/docs/index?api-version=2015-02-28Host: mysvc.search.windows.netapi-key: [YOUR_ADMIN_KEY]Content-Type: application/json

{ "value": [ { "@search.action": "upload", "placeId": "3620764888", "nameBg": "Университет по ...", "placeType": "university", ... }, ... ]}

Indexing approaches• Push

o .NET SDKo REST API

• Pullo Azure SQL Databaseo SQL Server hosted in Azure VMo DocumentDBo Blob Storage

4. Searching• Scope for search is an index• The search API offers a number of options

o Full-text search including user-friendly operators

o Query support: strict filters, sorting, paging and field selection

o Facetingo Hit highlighting

• Results include scores plus requested fields

API: Search• Simple search:…/docs/search=your search query goes there• Search with a strict filter:…/docs?search=Sofia&$filter=placeType eq ‘university'• Search with sorting, paging, field selection:…/docs?search=Sofia&$orderby=nameBg asc&$top=5&$select=nameBg• Faceting:…/docs?search=Sofia&facet=placeType• Hit highlighting:…/docs?search=Sofia&highlight=nameEn

Geospatial Search• Search in documents within X km of my

location• Sort results by distance from my location• Search for documents within a given

polygon

Search Suggestions• Building block for auto-complete• Tricky balance of speed and features• Suggestions come from document data

5. Tuning• Default: scoring based on text relevance• Scoring profiles for tuning scores

o Field weights: relative importance of fieldso Scoring functions: describe what matters to

you• One or more scoring profiles for different

scenarios

PlaceFinder• Indexed Open Street Map for Sofia• Used Azure SQL indexer which is powered

by a view• Used technologies:

o ASP.NET Web APIo Azure Search .NET SDKo KnockoutJS

• Project repository:https://github.com/RadoslavGatev/PlaceFinder

Scaling

Partitions(more documents, more storage, parallelism)

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12

Repl

icas

(mor

e qu

erie

s, m

ore

HA)

1 - 1

2

R x P <= 36

Service tiers

* Minimum two replicas for read-SLA, three replicas for read-write-SLA** Can be increased by calling Azure support

Service tier Free Basic(Preview)

Standard S1

Availability SLA No Yes* Yes*Max documents 10,000 1 million 180** million

(15 million/partition)

Max partitions N/A 1 12Max replicas N/A 3 12Max storage 50 MB 2 GB 300** GB

(25 GB/partition)

A few ideas• Use cache-aside pattern and Redis Cache

o Reduce monetary costs o Maintain high availability

• Multi-service scalingo Use load balancingo Prevent whole-region failureso Handle extreme search workloads

Upcoming events

SQLSaturday #519 in may!http://www.sqlsaturday.com/519/

Thanks to our Sponsors:Global Sponsor:

Platinum Sponsors:

Swag Sponsors: Media Partners:

With the support of: