Elasticsearch at Eliatra: Migration to OpenSearch

Eliatra describes itself as focused on Open Source and OpenSearch, and as an official OpenSearch partner. Its stated mission includes providing solutions for OpenSearch and helping users migrate the Elastic Stack to OpenSearch, sometimes without downtime, drawing on in-depth expertise with Elasticsearch and X-Pack. Eliatra also notes experience running both OpenSearch and Elasticsearch on Kubernetes at scale. Its site presents OpenSearch as a community-driven, open-source search and analytics suite built on Apache Lucene and a fork of Elasticsearch.

• Official OpenSearch partner
• Expertise with Elasticsearch and X-Pack
• Enterprise support with guaranteed SLAs for OpenSearch
• Bug fixes and hotfix releases

Eliatra offers a service to migrate Elasticsearch infrastructure to the OpenSearch Stack. The company notes there is no single migration path, because Elasticsearch is widespread and no two installations are the same, so migrations are considered across four topics: data, features, tools and configuration. Data compatibility is addressed through Snapshot/Restore and the Reindex API, while configuration covers TLS setup, users, roles, document- and field-level security and user impersonation. Data Prepper is listed under tools.

• Data compatibility: Snapshot/Restore, Reindex API
• Configuration: TLS setup, users, roles
• Document- and field-level security
• User impersonation
• Tooling: Data Prepper

Eliatra publishes two blog series on moving from Elasticsearch to OpenSearch, each with four to five articles. Series one covers the reasons and prerequisites for migrating and the specific migration methods: Snapshot/Restore, Full Cluster Restart with the Reindex API, and Rolling Restart, with pros, cons and command examples. Series two addresses post-migration security, mapping X-Pack security onto OpenSearch security. The security articles cover TLS settings, native realm users moving to the Internal User Database, custom roles and privilege mapping to Action Groups, document- and field-level security, and run_as to user impersonation.

• Prerequisites and reasons to migrate
• Snapshot/Restore method
• Full Cluster Restart / Reindex API method
• Rolling Restart method
• X-Pack to OpenSearch Security mapping

Eliatra Suite ships a Compatibility Edition that allows migration from Elasticsearch with Search Guard installed to OpenSearch with Eliatra Suite, without downtime. The documented path is from Elasticsearch 7.10.2 OSS with Search Guard FLX 1.1.1 or later to OpenSearch 2.5.x or 2.6.x, and the plugin is downloadable from Eliatra's Maven repository. Prerequisites include the new FLX configuration format using sg_authc.yml, TLS certificates signed by a common Root or Intermediate CA, at least one replica per index, and a defined node migration order starting with data nodes. Migrating Kibana to OpenSearch Dashboards is also covered, although that step requires a short downtime because Kibana and Dashboards cannot run simultaneously.

• Source: Elasticsearch 7.10.2 OSS with Search Guard FLX >= 1.1.1
• Target: OpenSearch 2.5.x or 2.6.x
• Requires sg_authc.yml configuration format
• TLS certificates from a common Root or Intermediate CA
• Each index needs at least one replica
• Eliatra Suite Migration Tool used during the process

Eliatra offers tailored workshops for OpenSearch and the Elastic Stack, built from four modules that can be mixed and matched. Topics include installation and basic configuration of either OpenSearch or Elasticsearch, forming and managing clusters, and dashboard installation with OpenSearch Dashboards or Kibana. Architecture guidelines, indexing, sharding and index management best practices are also covered, alongside modules on Logstash integration, Filebeat and migration to OpenSearch.

• Getting Started module
• Logstash Integration
• Filebeat
• Migration to OpenSearch

Eliatra has investigated whether large language models can lower the barrier to querying Elasticsearch and OpenSearch. The company notes that Elasticsearch does not natively support SQL and uses its own domain-specific language, which requires specialised skills and can discourage non-technical users. The study used Elasticsearch as the platform of choice, on the assumption that more training data exists for it than for the newer OpenSearch, while noting the principles apply to both. The approach pulls index mapping data, constructs a prompt containing the natural-language question and the mapping, and asks the model to generate a valid query.

• Models tested: ChatGPT 3.0, ChatGPT 4.0, Bard, OpsGPT
• Uses index mapping data in the prompt
• Query can be presented or executed directly

Eliatra is a remote-first company with its main office in Dublin, and people working across Ireland, Europe and the United States. Its listed address is 77 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, D02 XE80, Ireland, with a VAT ID of IE3683511SH. The site invites contact by email at [email protected] or through its contact form for professional services and migration enquiries, and maintains a community forum.

• Main office in Dublin, Ireland
• 77 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, D02 XE80
• Email: [email protected]
• Remote-first working model