Overview

The SearchStax Managed Search service can be used to add custom indexes on a Sitecore website.

This page presumes that you have already installed Sitecore and connected it to a Managed Search deployment according to the directions for Sitecore 9.1, Sitecore 9.2, Sitecore 9.3, or Sitecore 10.

Therefore, you already have a Sitecore site that is connected to a compatible Managed Search deployment. You have access to the Solr Dashboard, and you have prepared Solr configuration files for your custom collections, including a custom Managed Schema file.

Contents:

1. Install the Zookeeper Script
2. Upload the Sitecore Configuration Files.
3. Create Sitecore Collections.

Install the Zookeeper Script

Apache ZooKeeper is a centralized service for maintaining configuration information. In a Managed Search deployment, Zookeeper acts as a centralized repository for your Solr configuration files.

SearchStax users do not have direct access to the Zookeeper configsets as they would in a local Solr installation. Instead, they interact with Zookeeper through a modified version of Solr’s standard zkcli script. SearchStax provides both Linux and Windows versions of the script.

You can download the zkcli ZIP file here: searchstax-client-master.zip.

Unzip the file. The top-level directory is \searchstax-client-master. Navigate to the solr-5, solr-6, solr-7, or solr-8 scripts subdirectory (such as \searchstax-client-master\solr-8\scripts). Locate zkcli.bat in that directory. This is the Windows version of the script.

Upload the Sitecore Configuration Files

We assume that you have a directory of configuration files prepared for your custom Sitecore collection. If not, you can download a Sitecore configset from your Solr Cloud deployment and then upload it again under a new name. The configset name should match the name of your custom index.

See How can I update my Solr configurations in Zookeeper? for instructions on using zkcli to download/upload configsets.

Follow these steps to upload the Solr configuration for your new collection:

1. Download any of the existing Sitecore configsets.
2. Upload the configset to Zookeeper under a new name that matches your custom index.

Create Sitecore Collections

When you have uploaded the Solr configuration to Zookeeper, you can create Sitecore collections by following these steps:

1. Navigate to the Collections page in the Solr Dashboard.
2. Click Add Collection.
3. In the config set field, click the Sitecore configuration.
4. Specify the following fields as shown:
5. Repeat for each of the custom collections you wish to add.

The post Sitecore Custom Indexes appeared first on SearchStax Docs.

SearchStax offers many pages of Solr/Sitecore-related information, most of which were written in response to frequently-asked questions about connecting SearchStax Managed Search service deployments to Sitecore websites.

This page presently the full list of pages for rapid review.

SearchStax Sitecore Topics

The following topics are found in the SearchStax Help Center.

Can SearchStax provide Solr indexing to Sitecore?

SearchStax has hundreds of Sitecore clients. See the Sitecore/Solr Compatibility page for more information.

Optimizing the xConnect Search Service

Sitecore offers a page of advice about optimizing search and indexing of your xDB index. https://support.sitecore.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0671173

Lowering &rows=1000000

By default, Sitecore sends queries to Solr with the &rows parameter set to 1000000. This setting places enormous stress on Solr, sometimes maximizing CPU and JVM usage, because Solr allocates… Continue reading Lowering &rows=1000000

Unpublish/Delete Fails to Remove Item from Index

If you are using Sitecore 10.0 or an older version, you might face a problem when trying to unpublish an item from the web database or even delete an item… Continue reading Unpublish/Delete Fails to Remove Item from Index

SearchStax Cloud Sitecore Topics

Topics associated with the SearchStax Managed Search Connector for Sitecore.

Sitecore/Solr Compatibility

What Sitecore/Solr combination are available for Managed Search? Some Solr releases are compatible with some Sitecore releases. Other combinations may not work at all, or may seem to work until… Continue reading Sitecore/Solr Compatibility

Sitecore 9.1

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 9.1 website.… Continue reading Sitecore 9.1

Sitecore 9.2

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore website. This… Continue reading Sitecore 9.2

Sitecore 9.3

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 9.3 website.… Continue reading Sitecore 9.3

Sitecore 10.0

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 10.0 website.… Continue reading Sitecore 10.0

Sitecore 10.1

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 10.1 website.… Continue reading

Sitecore 10.2

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 10.2 website.… Continue reading Sitecore 10.2

Sitecore 10.3

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 10.3 website.… Continue reading Sitecore 10.3

Sitecore 10.4

SearchStax Managed Search can be used to enable Apache Solr on a Sitecore 10.4 website.… Continue reading Sitecore 10.4

Sitecore Custom Indexes

How to Add Custom Indexes to Sitecore using SearchStax Managed Search… Continue reading Sitecore Custom Indexes

Sitecore SwitchOnRebuild

Enable Sitecore’s SwitchOnRebuild with SearchStax Managed Search… Continue reading

Sitecore Topics from the SearchStax Blog

Plus, there are these selected blog posts from the full index of SearchStax Blog.

6 Reasons to Consider SearchStax Solr-as-a-Service

July 20, 2020
SearchStax Solr-as-a-Service has been selected by more than 200 customers over the last 4 years and here are the top 6 reasons why.

Sitecore Relies on SearchStax Managed Solr | SearchStax Blog

August 15, 2021
In our latest Case Study, see how Sitecore implements SearchStax Managed Solr to get a more stable, secure and robust Solr environment for their website.

Sitecore Best Practices for Solr Indexing | SearchStax Blog

Following our Sitecore best practices for Solr indexing will result in better performance and optimize resources consumption on Sitecore.

Migrating Azure Search to Solr Service for Sitecore – SearchStax

November 22, 2020
Migrating Azure Search to Solr Service for Sitecore is a fairly easy and straightforward process with SearchStax.

Sitecore SwitchOnRebuild and SearchStax SoIrCloud | The Search Experience Blog

April 27, 2020
Setting up the Sitecore SwitchOnRebuild feature with SolrCloud should be as simple as following the path to Grandma’s house – watch out for these red flags.

Sitecore Solr Stop Words Made Easy | The Search Experience Blog

April 2,2019
In Sitecore, it’s easy to use Solr stop words to remove specific words from queries to parse through the content and find the exact search phrase.

Questions?

Do not hesitate to contact the SearchStax Support Desk.

The post Solr for Sitecore FAQ appeared first on SearchStax Docs.

The SearchStax Managed Search service lets developers set up and deploy Solr infrastructure for Sitecore in minutes. Some Solr releases are compatible with some Sitecore releases. Other combinations may not work at all, or may seem to work until you encounter the incompatible feature at a later time.

SearchStax recommends certain specific combinations of Sitecore and Solr. We are prepared to support our Premium Clients who go down that path. The SearchStax Managed Search Connector for Sitecore helps you set up these systems.

We do not claim to be general Sitecore experts, and therefore cannot support Sitecore/Solr combinations that we have not tested and endorsed:

Our selection of supported combinations is derived from Sitecore’s published compatibility table.

• Note that even this table can be misleading because Sitecore did not support Solr Cloud deployments until Sitecore 9.0 update 2. SearchStax Managed Search deployments all require the Solr Cloud feature set, meaning that earlier versions of Sitecore are not compatible with Managed Search even though they can be used with some local Solr installations.
• Solr 8.x reached end-of-life on October 25, 2024. However, Sitecore advises customers to continue using compatible Solr versions.

Questions?

Do not hesitate to contact the SearchStax Support Desk.

The post Sitecore/Solr Compatibility appeared first on SearchStax Docs.

The SearchStax Managed Search service is compatible with Sitecore’s SwitchOnRebuild.

Sitecore indexes frequently have massive content with high turnover. Solr’s usual update mechanism—deleting and adding individual records followed by segment merging—is not adequate on this scale. It is much more efficient to dump Sitecore’s current state into a new index file. This can take hours, during which the collection is unavailable for search.

Enter SwitchOnRebuild. This feature, available since Sitecore 8.2, lets Sitecore build a new Solr index while serving queries from the previous index. When the new core is ready, Sitecore makes it active and deletes the old core.

Overview

People usually enable switchOnRebuild for these three Sitecore indexes:

• sitecore_master_index
• sitecore_core_index
• sitecore_web_index

Setting up switchOnRebuild for a Sitecore index in Managed Search involves two activities:

• Setting up the _rebuild collections and aliases in Solr.
• Enabling switchOnRebuild on the Sitecore side.

Create Solr Collections

On the Solr side, you must log into the Solr Dashboard and create a _rebuild collection for each of the modified indexes.

• sitecore_master_index_rebuild
• sitecore_core_index_rebuild
• sitecore_web_index_rebuild

Access the Solr Dashboard and select Collections in the left-hand menu. Click Add Collection.

For the name of the new collection, use the Sitecore index name and add _rebuild, as in sitecore_master_index_rebuild. The new collection should use the same configset as the original index. ReplicationFactor should be the number of nodes in your cluster. Our advice is to always leave numShards set to 1.

Click the Add Collection button.

Repeat this procedure for the remaining two indexes.

Create Solr Aliases

Now it’s time to build your aliases in the same Collections screen of the Solr Dashboard.

Look for the Create Alias button. In older versions of Solr, this button is at the top of the screen. In recent Solr releases, the button is at the bottom of the screen. Click this button.

To name the alias, use the name of the Sitecore index and append “_MainAlias”, as in sitecore_master_index_MainAlias. Then select the Sitecore index from the scrolling list and click the (new) Create Alias button.

Repeat three times, so you have a “_MainAlias” for each Sitecore index.

Now we need three more aliases. Repeat the steps for the three Sitecore indexes, but use the “_RebuildAlias” suffix instead of the “_MainAlias” suffix.

When you finish, you should see these nine new objects in your Collections screen:

Enable SwitchOnRebuild in Sitecore

To enable switchOnRebuild for these three indexes, please download SwitchOnRebuildSolrCloud.config from the SearchStax website. It arrives as a ZIP file, so you must extract the config file before use.

The file does not need to be modified for Sitecore 10.x. It is ready to run. Note that this config is for the SolrCloud version of switchOnRebuild, not the stand-alone version.

Drop a copy of this file anywhere beneath the App_Include folder in each of your Sitecore Instances (CM, CD, Processing, and Reporting). Each instance will detect the change in the configuration and will restart.

Build the Indexes

Within the Sitecore Experience Platform, click on the Control Panel, and then click on Index Manager. Verify that you can see all three of the modified indexes in the list. (If something is missing, it indicates a configuration issue.) Select the modified indexes and rebuild them.

Troubleshooting SwitchOnRebuild

In cases where there’s a suspected issue around swapping indexes, it’s almost always a configuration issue where the alias name is either misspelled or the parameter ordering is wrong in the configs.
 
When that’s not the case, it’s generally some sort of connection issue with Solr, which would be highlighted in the logs in the form of an application error in the Sitecore log.

Other SearchStax Pages

The current page supersedes our previous blog post, Sitecore SwitchOnRebuild and SearchStax SolrCloud.

We have a discussion of why your local-node SwitchOnRebuild configuration won’t work with SolrCloud: Can we use Sitecore’s SwitchOnRebuild with SearchStax?

You should also be aware of Why does Sitecore fail to populate schemas?

The post Sitecore SwitchOnRebuild appeared first on SearchStax Docs.