Alex Mukha
Team Lead @ Alfresco
I had the pleasure to work with Alessandro and Sease team for over a year and a half. His team was contracted to Search and Discovery team at Alfresco. As a team lead I was very lucky to get such support. Without their input we would not be able to achieve the business goals in the time limits. Their diligent and highly professional work helped not only to make the Search project successful, but also to grow the skills and expertise inside the team. They were able to coach and mentor the developers, provide internal training. Their deep knowledge of Solr and Elasticsearch helped to overcome a lot of complexity and deliver the necessary features and improvements to our customers in a timely manner.
Alfresco is a software company that provides enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) solutions. Alfresco’s platform is known for enabling organizations to manage, share, and collaborate on their documents and digital content efficiently.
The client is a company that relies heavily on its search infrastructure, which consisted, at the time of our collaboration, of a relational database integrated with Solr 6.1. Solr was utilized to handle extensive search functionalities and manage large-scale data indexing and retrieval.
At the beginning of the collaboration, the client began noticing a significant degradation in query performance after implementing the partial update capability. The average query time spiked from a swift 10 milliseconds to a sluggish 500 milliseconds, leading to noticeable slowdowns in data retrieval processes. This performance drop was unexpected, as the queries being executed were relatively simple and did not involve complex indexing operations.
This case study highlights a portion of the extensive work Sease has undertaken during our long-standing collaboration with the client. The primary solution to the problem highlighted was an upgrade of Solr to a higher version, which immediately resolved the performance degradation issue. The upgrade was carried out meticulously, ensuring there were no incompatibilities with the previous architecture.
Upgrading Solr can be a challenging process for businesses, particularly when dealing with custom configurations and potential incompatibilities across versions. However, with Sease’s expertise, the upgrade was seamlessly implemented, restoring performance and stability to the client’s search infrastructure.
In this instance, the performance degradation was due to inefficiencies in Solr 6.1 that were later optimized in subsequent versions. Solr 6.5 introduced key improvements, such as reorganizing the way large fields are handled during indexing. Specifically, large fields were moved to the end of the stored fields array, reducing the overhead of skipping them during queries and improving query times drastically.
However, upgrading Solr is not just about downloading the latest version. It’s a comprehensive process that involves:
– Addressing version compatibility
– Reviewing schema configurations
– Ensuring the existing infrastructure can support new features and optimizations
– Testing and validating that everything works seamlessly post-upgrade
In this case, the client’s query performance issues were solved through the upgrade, but the process also required careful schema redesign and optimization, ensuring that large fields were handled more efficiently and that query times remained optimal.
Throughout the upgrade process, Sease maintained a structured approach, working in agile sprints with continuous feedback from the client. We used Jira to track tasks and provide transparency, along with regular web calls to ensure clarity and rapid resolution of issues.
Partnering with Sease resulted in a successful Solr upgrade that not only resolved the performance issues but also future-proofed the client’s search infrastructure for continued scalability and efficiency. Our deep expertise in Solr and search technologies ensured that the upgrade was carried out smoothly, addressing compatibility challenges and unlocking the latest performance optimizations available in newer Solr versions.
For businesses relying on search infrastructure, keeping Solr updated is essential to maintaining optimal performance.
If you’re facing performance issues or looking to upgrade, Sease’s Apache Solr consulting service offers a streamlined, expert-led solution that will help you get the most out of your search infrastructure.
If you’re curious to learn more about how this problem was resolved, check out the detailed blog post, “Impact of Large Stored Fields on Apache Solr Query Performance“.
Contact us today to learn how Sease’s consulting services can help your organization seamlessly upgrade your Solr search infrastructure. Whether you’re facing performance issues or preparing for future growth, our expert team will ensure a smooth upgrade process, guiding you through every step of the transition.