In this Apache Solr tutorial for beginners, you will learn-

What is Apache Solr? History of Apache Solr
Features of Apache Solr
Key Terms used in Apache Solr
Apache Solr Architecture
Apache Solr Applications
How to install Apache Solr?
Elasticsearch Vs. Apache Solr
Advantages of Apache Solr
DisAdvantages of Apache Solr

History of Apache Solr

1999: Doug Cutting published Lucene 2004: Solr was developed at CNET by Yonik Seeley as a part company in-house project 2006: CNET publish the source code by donating it to the Apache Software Foundation 2008: Solr 1.3 was released with enhanced search capabilities and performance enhancements 2010: Merger of Lucene and Solr 2012: Solr version 4.0 was released, with new Solr Cloud feature 2016: Solr 6.0, was released which offers support for the execution of parallel SQL queries

Features of Apache Solr

Here are Important features of Apache Solr:

Automatic Load Balancing Standards-Based Open Interfaces – XML, JSON, and HTTP Recommendations & Spell Suggestions are supported Support for Auto-Completion and Geo-Spatial Search Built-in Security for Authentication and Authorization Allows you to perform a multilingual Keyword search Autocomplete/Type-ahead Prediction Batch and Streaming processing Building machine-learning models are easy Specially optimized for high volume web Traffic Comprehensive HTML Admiration Interfaces Supports both Schema and Schemaless configuration Faceted Search and Filtering Central Configuration For Entire Cluster

Key Terms used in Apache Solr

Now in this Solr search engine tutorial, we will learn about key terms used in Apache Solr:

Apache Solr Architecture

Now in this Solr search tutorial, let’s learn about Apache Solr Architecture:

Apache Solr compromises following components:

Query:

The query parser parses the queries which you need to pass to Solr. It verifies your query to check syntactical errors. After parsing the queries, it translates into a format which is known by Lucene.

Request Handler:

The request sends to Apache Solr are processed by the request handler. The request can be a query request or index update requests. You need to select the request handler according to your requirement. To pass a request to Solr, you need to map the handler to a specific URL end-point.

Response Writer

A response writer will generate formatted outputs for input queries. It supports various formats like XML, JSON, CSV.etc. You may have different response writers for different type of requests.

Update Handler:

When you send an update request to Apache Solr, it is run through a set of plugins, signature, logging, indexing. This process is known as update request processor. Update handler also responsible for modifications like adding or dropping filed, etc.

Apache Solr Applications

How to install Apache Solr?

Step 1) Open website & Continue to Subscribe Go to this link, Click “Continue to Subscribe.”

Step 2) Click on Accept Terms On the next page, Click on Accept Terms.

Step 3) Wait for some time Next, Wait for some time and then, Request is accepted after some time.

Step 4) Continue to Configuration Refresh the page and, Click “Continue to Configuration”

Step 5) Continue to Launch Keep the settings default and, Click “Continue to Launch.”

Step 6) Keep the settings default On the next page, Keep the settings default

Ensure you have the pem file of the key Click “Launch”

You will see this success message

Step 7) Note the public DNS In EC2 console, Note the public DNS of your instance

Step 8) Open below URL To access Solr, Simply use the URL in our case it becomes

Note: If you have trouble accessing the instance, change inbound and outbound rules in your instance to allow all traffic as shown in the below Solr query example:

Elasticsearch Vs. Apache Solr

Advantages of Apache Solr

Helps you to reduce the amount of time taken to locate Information It is fast, simple, powerful and flexible search engine Helps you to make your products and services more accessible Increase customer spend on a web application Helps you to improve user experience on the web application to increase revenue and profit Comprehensive HTML based Administration Interface Flexible and Adaptable with XML configuration Extensible Plugin Architecture Highly Scalable, robust, fault-tolerant search engine Supports Distributed, Shading, Replication, Clustering and Multi-Node Architecture

DisAdvantages of Apache Solr

It is not an ACID compliant Data Store It is not useful as a primary data store. Only useful as Secondary Data Store Not offers support for transactions and distributed transactions Not support Joins and Complex Queries Not optimal for Normalized Data

Summary

Apache Solr is an Open-source REST-API based search server Apache Solr was developed at CNET by Yonik Seeley as a part company in-house project Apache Solr offers features like Auto-Completion and Geo-Spatial Search Solr Core, Solr Instance, Indexing, Document, Restful APIs, Full-text search, Admin Interface, etc. are some key terms used in Apache Solr Query, Request handler, Request writer and update handlers are some of the important components of Apache Solr Intranet Portal, Federated Client, Instrument Datasets, Regulatory Documents, Embedded in PLM Application are useful Apache Solr Applications Apache Solr is well documented compares to elastic search which is badly documented The biggest advantage of Apache Solr is that it helps you to reduce the amount of time taken to locate Information The main drawback of this application It is not an ACID compliant Data Store