AWS CloudSearch Interview Questions and Answers

With Amazon CloudSearch, you can quickly add rich search capabilities to your website or application. You don’t need to become a search expert or worry about hardware provisioning, setup, and maintenance. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, you can create a search domain and upload the data that you want to make searchable, and Amazon CloudSearch will automatically provision the required resources and deploy a highly-tuned search index.

1. What is Amazon CloudSearch?

Amazon CloudSearch is a fully-managed search service that makes it easy to set up, manage, and scale a search solution for your website or application. With CloudSearch, you can search and filter through your data to find the information you need quickly and easily.

CloudSearch is designed to be highly scalable and flexible, and it can handle billions of search queries per day. It offers a range of features that make it easy to customize the search experience for your users, including faceted search, auto-complete, and synonym support.

2. How can you rapidly add rich search features to your website or application with Amazon CloudSearch?

There are several ways you can quickly add rich search features to your website or application with Amazon CloudSearch:

1. Use faceted search: Faceted search allows users to filter their search results by specific criteria, such as category, brand, or price range. This can help users find the specific information they need more quickly and easily.
2. Enable auto-complete: Auto-complete suggests search terms as users type, which can help users find what they’re looking for faster and can also reduce spelling errors.
3. Implement synonym support: Synonym support allows users to search for related terms and still find the information they’re looking for. For example, if a user searches for “television,” CloudSearch could also return results for “TV” or “telly.”
4. Use customizable ranking: CloudSearch allows you to customize how search results are ranked, so you can prioritize the most relevant results for your users.

3. Is there a financial benefit to adopting the latest Amazon CloudSearch Version?

On each instance type, the current version of Amazon CloudSearch has enhanced index compression and support for bigger indexes. As a consequence, the new edition of Amazon CloudSearch is more efficient than the old one and can save you money.

4. How can I restrict access to my search domain for certain users?

For the configuration service and all search domain services, Amazon CloudSearch enables IAM integration. You may give users complete access to Amazon CloudSearch, limit their access to select domains, and allow or disallow certain operations.

5. What are the Advantages of Amazon CloudSearch?

There are several advantages to using Amazon CloudSearch for your search needs:

1. Fully managed service: CloudSearch is a fully managed service, which means that Amazon takes care of all the underlying infrastructure and maintenance, so you can focus on your business.
2. Scalability: CloudSearch is designed to scale to billions of searches per day, so you don’t have to worry about capacity or performance as your search needs grow.
3. Customization: CloudSearch offers a range of customization options, including faceted search, synonym support, and customizable ranking, so you can tailor the search experience to your specific needs.
4. Integration with other AWS products: CloudSearch integrates seamlessly with other AWS products, such as Amazon S3 and Amazon Elasticsearch Service, so you can easily build a powerful search solution that meets the needs of your business.
5. Cost-effective: CloudSearch is a cost-effective solution for adding search functionality to your website or application. It is pay-as-you-go, so you only pay for the resources you use.
6. Secure: CloudSearch is built with security in mind and uses encryption to protect your data. It also includes a range of security features, such as role-based access control and data backup, to help ensure the safety of your data.
7. Easy to use: CloudSearch is easy to set up and use. You can use the CloudSearch console or API to manage and customize your search solution, and there is comprehensive documentation and support available to help you get started.
8. High availability: CloudSearch is designed to be highly available, with multiple copies of your data stored in multiple availability zones to ensure that your search service is always up and running.
9. Fast performance: CloudSearch uses advanced search algorithms to deliver fast search results to your users, so they can find the information they need quickly and easily.
10. Overall, Amazon CloudSearch is a powerful and flexible search solution that can help you add rich search functionality to your website or application quickly and easily. It is fully managed, scalable, customizable, and integrates seamlessly with other AWS products, making it an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes.

6. Is it possible to utilize Amazon CloudSearch in conjunction with a storage service?

A storage service and a search service work together. Your documents must already be saved someplace for a search service to work, whether it’s in files on a file system, data in Amazon S3, or records in an Amazon DynamoDB or Amazon RDS instance. The search service is a quick retrieval system that indexes those objects and makes them searchable with sub-second latency.

7. What is the purpose of the new Multi-AZ feature? Will there be any downtime if something goes wrong with my system?

When you select the Multi-AZ option, Amazon CloudSearch instances in either zone may handle the full load in the case of a failure. If a service outage occurs or instances in one Availability Zone become unusable, Amazon CloudSearch redirects all traffic to the other Availability Zone. Without any administrator intervention or service disturbance, redundant instances are restored in a different Availability Zone.

Some in-flight searches may fail and must be performed again. Updates provided to the search domain are saved indefinitely and will not be lost if the server goes down.

8. Is it possible to utilize Amazon CloudSearch with a database?

Databases and search engines aren’t mutually exclusive; in fact, they’re frequently utilized together. If you already have a database with structured data, you might use a search engine to intelligently filter and rank the contents of the database using search terms as relevance criteria.

Both organized and unstructured data may be indexed and searched using a search service. Content can come from a variety of places, including database fields, files in various formats, web pages, and so on. A search service can allow custom result ranking as well as unique search capabilities like utilizing facets filtering that isn’t accessible in databases, such as using facets for filtering.

9. What are the most recent instance types for CloudSearch?

To replace the earlier CloudSearch instance types, we announced new CloudSearch instance types in January 2021. Search.small, search.medium, search.large, search.xlarge, and search.2xlarge are the most recent CloudSearch instances, and they are one-to-one replacements for previous instances; for example, search.small replace search.m1.small. The new instances are built on top of the current generation of EC2 instance types, resulting in improved availability and performance at the same price.

10. My domain hosts CloudSearch instances from the previous generation, such as search.m2.2xlarge. Is my domain going to be migrated?

Yes, in later rounds of the migration, your domain will be transferred to corresponding new instances. Search.m2.2xlarge, for example, will be renamed to search.previousgeneration.2xlarge. These instances are the same price as the old instances, but they give improved domain stability.

11. What exactly is faceting?

Faceting allows you to group your search results into refinements, which the user may then utilize to do more searches. For instance, if a user searches for “umbrellas,” facets allow you to sort the results by price ranges like $0-$10, $10-$20, $20-$40, and so on. Result counts may also be incorporated in facets in Amazon CloudSearch, such that each refinement contains a count of the number of documents in that group. For instance, $0-$10 (4 things), $10-$20 (123 items), $20-$40 (57 items), and so on.

12. What is the best way to change our domains to reflect the new instances?

Your domain will be effortlessly moved to the new instances. You are not required to take any action. Amazon will execute this migration in stages over the following few weeks, starting with domains that are using the CloudSearch 2013 version. Once your domain has been upgraded to the new instance types, you will receive a message in the console. Any new domains you establish will start using the new instances immediately.

13. What data types does Amazon CloudSearch support in its latest version?

Amazon CloudSearch supports a wide range of data types in its latest version, including:

1. Text: CloudSearch can index and search text data, such as the contents of a document or the body of an email.
2. Numbers: CloudSearch can index and search numeric data, such as prices or ratings.
3. Dates and times: CloudSearch can index and search date and time data, such as the date a document was created or the time an event takes place.
4. Geospatial data: CloudSearch can index and search geospatial data, such as the location of a business or the coordinates of a map point.
5. Binary data: CloudSearch can index and search binary data, such as images or documents, by extracting text from the data using optical character recognition (OCR).
6. Structured data: CloudSearch can index and search structured data, such as data stored in a database or data contained in a JSON document.
7. Custom data types: CloudSearch also supports custom data types, so you can create your own data types to index and search data that is specific to your business needs.
8. Date fields store dates in UTC (Universal Time) format, as defined by IETF RFC3339: yyyy-mm-ddT00:00:00Z. A location is kept as a latitude and longitude value pair in Latlon fields.

Overall, CloudSearch can handle a wide range of data types, making it a flexible and powerful search solution for a variety of use cases.

14. Is it possible to use the console to access the latest version of Amazon CloudSearch?

Yes. You may use the console to access the updated version of Amazon CloudSearch. You may choose the version of Amazon CloudSearch you wish to use when creating new search domains if you’re an existing Amazon CloudSearch client with existing search domains. New clients will be automatically switched to the new version of Amazon CloudSearch, with no access to the 2011-01-01 version.

15. Is it possible to use Amazon CloudSearch with several AZs?

Yes. Multi-AZ installations are supported by Amazon CloudSearch. When you choose the Multi-AZ option, Amazon CloudSearch creates and maintains additional instances in a second Availability Zone for your search domain to provide high availability. Updates are applied to both Availability Zones’ instances automatically. In the case of a failure, search traffic is dispersed over all instances, and instances in either zone are capable of bearing the full load.

16. Is it necessary for my documents to be in a specific format?

You must format your data in JSON or XML to make it searchable. A document represents each item you wish to be able to obtain as a search result. Every document includes a unique document ID as well as one or more fields containing the data you wish to search for and return in results. According to the index fields set for the domain, Amazon CloudSearch creates a search index from your document data. You submit modifications to add or remove documents from your index as your data changes.

17. What Are Amazon CloudSearch and its features?

Amazon CloudSearch is a fully managed service in the cloud that makes it easy to set up, manage, and scale a search solution for your website or application.

You can use Amazon CloudSearch to index and search both structured data and plain text. Amazon CloudSearch features:

• Full-text search with language-specific text processing
• Boolean Search
• Prefix searches
• Range searches
• Term boosting
• Faceting
• Highlighting
• Autocomplete Suggestions

18. What are the benefits of running a managed search service like Amazon CloudSearch over running my own search service on EC2?

Amazon CloudSearch provides several benefits over running your own self-managed search service including easy configuration, auto-scaling for data and traffic, self-healing clusters, and high availability with Multi-AZ. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, you can create a search domain and upload the data you want to make searchable, and Amazon CloudSearch automatically provisions the required resources and deploys a highly tuned search index.

19. What benefits does Amazon CloudSearch offer?

Here are the main benefits of Amazon CloudSearch:

1. Fully managed service: CloudSearch is a fully managed service, which means that Amazon takes care of all the underlying infrastructure and maintenance, so you can focus on your business.
2. Scalability: CloudSearch is designed to scale to billions of searches per day, so you don’t have to worry about capacity or performance as your search needs grow.
3. Customization: CloudSearch offers a range of customization options, including faceted search, synonym support, and customizable ranking, so you can tailor the search experience to your specific needs.
4. Integration with other AWS products: CloudSearch integrates seamlessly with other AWS products, such as Amazon S3 and Amazon Elasticsearch Service, so you can easily build a powerful search solution that meets the needs of your business.
5. Cost-effective: CloudSearch is a cost-effective solution for adding search functionality to your website or application. It is pay-as-you-go, so you only pay for the resources you use.

20. Can Amazon CloudSearch be used with a Storage Service?

A search service and a storage service are complimentary. A search service requires that your documents already be stored somewhere, whether it’s in files of a file system, data in Amazon S3, or records in an Amazon DynamoDB or Amazon RDS instance. The search service is a rapid retrieval system that makes those items searchable with sub-second latencies through a process called indexing.

21. Can Amazon CloudSearch be used with a database?

Search engines and databases are not mutually exclusive – in fact, they are often used together. If you already have a database that contains structured data, you might want to use a search engine to intelligently filter and rank the database contents using search keywords as relevance criteria.

A search service can be used to index and search both structured and unstructured data. Content can come from multiple sources and can include database fields along with files in a variety of formats, web pages, and so on. A search service can support customizable result ranking as well as special search features such as using facets for filtering that are not available in databases.

22. What regions is Amazon CloudSearch available in?

Amazon CloudSearch is available in the following AWS Regions: US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), US West (N. California), EU (Ireland), EU (Frankfurt), South America (Sao Paulo), and Asia Pacific (Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, and Seoul).

Questions on the latest CloudSearch Instances (Launched Jan 2021)

23. What are the latest CloudSearch instance types?

In Jan 2021, we launched new CloudSearch instance types to replace the older instances. The latest CloudSearch instances are search.small, search.medium, search.large, search.xlarge, and search.2xlarge, and are one to one replacements for the existing instances; for example, search.small replaces search.m1.small. The new instances leverage the latest generation EC2 instance types underneath and hence provide better availability and performance at the same pricing.

24. How do we update our domains to the new instances?

We will automatically move your domain to the new instances seamlessly. No action is needed by you. We will do this migration incrementally over the next several weeks, starting with domains that are on the 2013 version of CloudSearch. You will see a notification on the console once your domain is updated to the new instance types. Any new domains that you create, will automatically start using the new instances. If you have any questions about the migration, please reach out to AWS support.

25. My domain is running previous-generation CloudSearch instances such as search.m2.2xlarge. Will my domain be migrated?

Yes, your domain will be migrated to equivalent new instances in subsequent phases of the migration. For example, search.m2.2xlarge will be updated to search.previousgeneration.2xlarge. These instances are priced the same as the existing instances and provide better stability for your domain.

CloudSearch Questions About 2013-01-01 API

26. What new features does Amazon CloudSearch support?

With this latest release, Amazon CloudSearch supports several new search and administration features. The key new features include:

• Language support:
  • 34 languages, plus “multiple” to handle mixed language fields
  • Per-field language configuration
  • Language-specific text analysis
  • Multiple levels of algorithmic stemming are available for many languages, including “none”
• Enhanced search features:
  • Suggestions
  • Highlighting
  • Geospatial search
  • New data types: date, double, 64-bit signed int, latlon
  • Sloppy phrase search
  • Term boosting
  • Enhanced range searching for all field types
  • Support for multiple query parsers: simple, structured, lucene, dismax
  • Query parser configuration options
• Administration features:
  • High availability option
  • IAM integration
  • User configurable scaling
• Available in additional AWS Regions: Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Seoul), and South America (Sao Paulo)

27. Does Amazon CloudSearch still support dictionary stemming?

Yes. The new version of Amazon CloudSearch supports dictionary stemming in addition to algorithmic stemming.

28. Does the new version of Amazon CloudSearch use Apache Solr?

Yes. The latest version of Amazon CloudSearch has been modified to use Apache Solr as the underlying text search engine. Amazon CloudSearch now provides several popular search engine features available with Apache Solr in addition to the managed search service experience that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a search domain.

29. Can I access the new version of Amazon CloudSearch through the console?

Yes. You can access the new version of Amazon CloudSearch through the console. If you are a current Amazon CloudSearch customer with existing search domains, you have the option to select which version of Amazon CloudSearch you want to use when creating new search domains. New customers will use the new version of Amazon CloudSearch by default and will not have access to the 2011-01-01 version.

30. What data types do the new version of Amazon CloudSearch support?

Amazon CloudSearch supports two types of text fields, text and literal. Text fields are processed according to the language configured for the field to determine individual words that can serve as matches for queries. Literal fields are not processed and must match exactly, including the case. CloudSearch also supports four numeric types: int, double, date, and latlon. Int fields hold 64-bit, signed integer values. Double fields hold double-width floating point values. Date fields hold dates specified in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) according to IETF RFC3339: yyyy-mm-ddT00:00:00Z. Latlon fields contain a location stored as a latitude and longitude value pair.

31. Will my existing search domains created with the 2011-02-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch continue to work?

Yes. Existing search domains created with the 2011-02-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch will continue to work.

32. Will I be able to use the new features on my existing search domains created with the 2011-01-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch?

No. Existing search domains created with the 2011-01-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch will not have access to the features available in the new version. To access the new features you will have to create a new search domain using the 2013-01-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch.

33. How can I migrate my applications built using the 2011-01-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch to the new version of Amazon CloudSearch?

To use the new version of Amazon CloudSearch you need to recreate existing domains using the new version of Amazon CloudSearch and re-upload your data. For more information, see Migrating to the 2013-01-01 API in the Amazon CloudSearch Developer Guide.

34. Will AWS continue to support the 2011-02-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch?

Yes. AWS will continue support for the 2011-02-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch.

35. Can I create new search domains using the 2011-02-01 version of Amazon CloudSearch?

Current Amazon CloudSearch customers who have existing 2011-02-01 domains will be able to choose whether their new domains use the 2011-02-01 API or the new 2013-01-01 API. Search domains created by new customers will automatically be created with the 2013-01-01 API.

36. Can I take advantage of the free trial offer with the new version of Amazon CloudSearch?

New customers will still be able to take advantage of the free trial offer available with Amazon CloudSearch. See the Amazon CloudSearch Free Trial page for details.

Getting Started CloudSearch Questions

37. How do I get started with Amazon CloudSearch?

To sign up for Amazon CloudSearch, click the Create Free Account button on the Amazon CloudSearch detail page and complete the sign-up process. You must have an Amazon Web Services account. If you do not already have one, you will be prompted to create an AWS account when you begin the Amazon CloudSearch sign-up process.

After you have signed up, select Amazon CloudSearch from the AWS Management Console. Using the Amazon CloudSearch console you can quickly create a search domain, configure your search fields, upload sample data, and send search queries to your search domain. You can also use the AWS SDKs and the CLI to perform these operations.

For more information, see the Getting Started tutorial in the Amazon CloudSearch Developer Guide.

38. Do the AWS SDKs support Amazon CloudSearch?

Yes, the AWS SDKs for Java, Ruby, Python, .Net, PHP, and Node.js provide support for CloudSearch. Using the AWS SDKs you can quickly create a search domain, configure your search fields, upload data, and send search queries to your search domain.

39. Does the AWS CLI support Amazon CloudSearch?

Yes, the AWS CLI provides support for CloudSearch. Using the AWS CLI you can quickly create a search domain, configure your search fields, upload data, and send search queries to your search domain.

40. Can I still use the Amazon CloudSearch CLTs?

Yes, the Amazon CloudSearch CLTs will continue to work.

CloudSearch Questions on Search Domains, Data, and Indexing

41. Do my documents need to be in a particular format?

To make your data searchable, you need to format your data in JSON or XML.  Each item that you want to be able to receive as a search result is represented as a document. Every document has a unique document ID and one or more fields that contain the data that you want to search and return in results. Amazon CloudSearch generates a search index from your document data according to the index fields configured for the domain. As your data changes, you submit updates to add or delete documents from your index.

42. How do I create document batches formatted for Amazon CloudSearch?

To create document batches formatted for Amazon CloudSearch, you will need to create a JSON file containing an array of documents. Each document should contain the fields you want to index and search, as well as a unique identifier for the document.

Here is an example of a simple document batch containing two documents:

[
{
"type": "add",
"id": "1",
"fields": {
"title": "The Art of War",
"author": "Sun Tzu"
}
},
{
"type": "add",
"id": "2",
"fields": {
"title": "The Prince",
"author": "Machiavelli"
}
}
]

In this example, each document has a “type” field set to “add”, a unique “id” field, and a “fields” object containing the data to be indexed and searched.

To create a larger batch of documents, you can simply add more documents to the array. The batch size for Amazon CloudSearch is limited to 5 MB or up to 50,000 documents, so you will need to create multiple batches if you have more than 50,000 documents to index.

Once you have created your document batch, you can use the CloudSearch API to send the batch to the service for indexing. You can also use the CloudSearch console to upload and manage your document batches.

43. Can a search domain span multiple Availability Zones?

Yes. If you enable the Multi-AZ option, Amazon CloudSearch deploys additional instances in a second availability zone in the same Region. For more information, see Configuring Availability Options in the Amazon CloudSearch Developer Guide.

44. Why is my domain in the “Processing” state?

A domain can be in one of three different states: “processing,” “active,” or “reindexing.” Normally, your domain will be in the “active” state, which indicates that no changes are currently being made, that the domain can be queried and updated, and that all previous changes are currently visible in the search results.

When a domain needs to be re-indexed, Amazon CloudSearch needs to rebuild the index entirely. However, the domain does not enter the “processing” state until you initiate reindexing. During this stage, the domain can still be queried and updated, but the configuration changes won’t be visible in search results until indexing is completed, and the domain’s status changes back to “active.”

You can also continue to upload document batches to your domain. However, if you submit a large volume of updates while your domain is in the “processing” state, it can increase the amount of time it takes for the updates to be applied to your search index. If this becomes an issue, slow down your update rate until the domain returns to the “active” state.

45. How do I delete my search domain?

To delete a search domain, click on the Delete Domain button in the Amazon CloudSearch console. You can also delete domains through the AWS SDKs or AWS CLI.

46. What are the best practices for bootstrapping data into CloudSearch?

After you’ve launched your domain, the next step is loading your data into Amazon CloudSearch. You’ll likely need to upload a single large dataset, and then make smaller updates or additions as new data comes in. The following guidelines will help make bootstrapping your initial data into CloudSearch quick and easily.

1. Use the curl-v command line tool when preparing your script

During the upload of a dataset, the script you’ve written reads your data and uses it to create JSON or XML documents. We recommend preparing this script in advance and using curl or another simple command line tool to see if you’re able to upload the documents that the script creates. The “-v” option in curl often provides more detailed information about syntax problems than the AWS SDK or Boto, which both suppress errors for production purposes. Curl displays more detailed error messages, which helps identify the sources of any issues.

2. Use the UTF-8 character code

Make sure that all data is formatted in the UTF-8 character code format, and that any bad Unicode characters have been removed before uploading to CloudSearch. Illegal characters will cause the document upload to fail.

3. Batch your documents

Batching your documents is perhaps the most important step in data bootstrapping. Submitting documents to CloudSearch individually is not only inefficient but also leads to preventable errors.

A document batch is simply a collection of add and deletes operations that represent the documents you want to add, update, or delete from your domain. Batches are described in either JSON or XML, and when you upload them to a domain, the data is indexed automatically, according to the domain’s indexing options. Since you’re billed for the total number of document batches uploaded to your search domain, it’s more cost-effective to upload your data in batches of 5 MB, the maximum allowed per upload. You can also upload batches in parallel to reduce the amount of time it takes to upload your data.

4. Pre-scale

It’s also important to pre-scale your data before uploading it to CloudSearch. Pre-scaling involves selecting the appropriate instance type for the amount of data you wish to upload.

Choosing an instance with enough capacity to handle the size of your upload can help prevent errors and a high replication count. Although replication can help decrease search response time, it doesn’t increase the size of the data pipe or address core problems in data uploads.

CloudSearch will automatically scale up to larger instances as you send more data. Still, pre-selecting the appropriate instance type saves time later in the bootstrapping process, as scaling from one instance to another tends to be a slower process. Below is a sample script to pre-scale the domain for bootstrapping and to restore the instance type after data is loaded.

Pre-scale before bootstrapping:

aws cloudsearch update-scaling-parameters --domain-name foo --scaling-parameters DesiredInstanceType=search.m3.2xlarge
 
aws cloudsearch index-documents --domain-name foo

Restore after data loading:

aws cloudsearch update-scaling-parameters --domain-name foo --scaling-parameters DesiredInstanceType=search.m1.small
 
aws cloudsearch index-documents --domain-name foo

CloudSearch Questions on Search Features

47. What search features does Amazon CloudSearch provide?

Amazon CloudSearch provides features to index and searches both structured data and plain text, including faceted search, free text search, Boolean search expressions, customizable relevance ranking, query time rank expressions, field weighting, searching and sorting of results using any field, and text processing options including tokenization, stopwords, stemming and synonyms. It also provides near real-time indexing for document updates. New features include:

• Autocomplete suggestions
• Highlighting
• Geospatial search
• New data types: date, double, 64-bit signed int, LatLon
• Dynamic fields
• Index field statistics
• Sloppy phrase search
• Term boosting
• Enhanced range searching for all field types
• Search filters that don’t affect the relevance
• Support for multiple query parsers: simple, structured, Lucene, dismax
• Query parser configuration options

48. What is faceting?

Faceting allows you to categorize your search results into refinements on which the user can further search. For example, a user might search for “umbrellas”, and facets allow you to group the results by price, such as $0-$10, $10-$20, $20-$40, and so on. Amazon CloudSearch also allows for result counts to be included in facets so that each refinement has a count of the number of documents in that group. The example could then be $0-$10 (4 items), $10-$20 (123 items), $20-$40 (57 items), and so on.

49. What languages does Amazon CloudSearch support?

Amazon CloudSearch currently supports 34 languages: Arabic (ar), Armenian (hy), Basque (eu), Bulgarian (bg), Catalan (ca), simplified Chinese (zh-Simp), traditional Chinese (zh-Trad), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (en), Finnish (fi), French (fr), Galician (gl), German (de), Greek (el), Hebrew (he), Hindi (hi), Hungarian (hu), Indonesian (id), Irish (ga), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Latvian (la), Norwegian (no), Persian (fa), Portuguese (pt), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv), Thai (th), and Turkish (tr). In addition, Amazon CloudSearch supports a Multiple (mul) option for fields that contain mixed languages.

50. Does Amazon CloudSearch support geospatial search?

Yes, Amazon CloudSearch has a native type to support latitude and longitude (latlon), so that you can easily implement geographically-based searching and sorting. For more information, see Searching and Ranking Results by Geographic Location in the Amazon CloudSearch Developer Guide.

51. What makes one search request more complex than another?

Amazon CloudSearch is designed to efficiently process a wide range of search requests very quickly. Search requests vary in complexity depending on the expressions that determine which documents match and additional criteria that determine how closely each document matches. Search requests that match a large number of documents take longer to process than those that match very few documents. Search requests that compute complex expressions take longer to process than those that rank using simple criteria such as a single field. To help you understand the difference in complexity between Search requests, the time it took to process the request is returned as part of the response.

Questions on CloudSearch Scaling

52. What instance types does Amazon CloudSearch support?

Amazon CloudSearch supports the following instance types:

• Small Search Instance
• Large Search Instance
• Extra Large Search Instance
• Double Extra Large Search Instance

53. Does Amazon CloudSearch support Multi-AZ deployments?

Yes. Amazon CloudSearch supports Multi-AZ deployments. When you enable the Multi-AZ option, Amazon CloudSearch provisions and maintains extra instances for your search domain in a second Availability Zone to ensure high availability. Updates are automatically applied to the instances in both Availability Zones. Search traffic is distributed across all of the instances and the instances in either zone are capable of handling the full load in the event of a failure.

54. Do I need to select the number and type of search instances for my search domain?

CloudSearch is a fully managed search service that automatically scales your search domain and selects the number and type of search instances. All search instances in a given search domain are of the same type and this type can change over time as your data or traffic grows.

You can also configure scaling options for an Amazon CloudSearch domain to:

• Increase the upload capacity
• Speed up search requests
• Increase the search capacity
• Improve fault tolerance

55. How does the new Multi-AZ feature work? Will my system experience any downtime in the event of a failure?

When the Multi-AZ option is enabled, Amazon CloudSearch instances in either zone are capable of handling the full load in the event of a failure. If there’s service disruption or the instances in one zone become degraded, Amazon CloudSearch routes all traffic to the other Availability Zone. Redundant instances are restored in a separate Availability Zone without any administrative intervention or disruption in service.

Some inflight queries might fail and will need to be retried. Updates sent to the search domain are stored durably and will not be lost in the event of failure.

56. Can I choose which Availability Zones my search domain is deployed in?

No. At this time Amazon CloudSearch automatically chooses an alternate Availability Zone in the same Region.

57. Can I choose the instance type my domain uses?

Yes. With the latest release, Amazon CloudSearch enables you to specify the desired instance type for your domain. If necessary, Amazon CloudSearch will scale your domain up to a larger instance type, but will never scale back to a smaller instance type.

58. What is the fastest way to get my data into CloudSearch?

By default, all domains start out on a small search instance. If you need to upload a large amount of data, you should prescale your domain to a larger instance type. For more information, see Bulk Uploads in the Amazon CloudSearch Developer Guide.

Questions on CloudSearch Security

59. What additional security features are available with the new version of Amazon CloudSearch?

With the latest release, Amazon CloudSearch now provides IAM integration for the configuration service and all search domain services. You can control access to specific Amazon CloudSearch actions and require request authentication for all requests. Requests are authenticated using Signature Version 4 signing.

60. How do I upload my data to Amazon CloudSearch securely?

There are several ways you can upload your data to Amazon CloudSearch securely:

1. Use the CloudSearch API: The CloudSearch API allows you to programmatically upload your data to the service using HTTPS. This is the most secure way to upload data, as all data is transferred over an encrypted connection.
2. Use the CloudSearch console: The CloudSearch console also allows you to upload your data to the service, and all data is transferred over an encrypted connection.
3. Use Amazon S3: You can also store your data in Amazon S3 and use the CloudSearch S3 connector to index the data in CloudSearch. The connector uses Amazon S3’s secure infrastructure to transfer data to CloudSearch.
4. Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): You can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to control access to your CloudSearch domain and data. With IAM, you can create users and grant them specific permissions to access your data, helping to ensure that only authorized users can access your data.

Overall, there are several ways you can securely upload your data to Amazon CloudSearch to ensure the safety and privacy of your data.

61. How can I prevent specific users from accessing my search domain?

Amazon CloudSearch supports IAM integration for the configuration service and all search domain services. You can grant users full access to Amazon CloudSearch, restrict their access to specific domains, and allow or deny access to specific actions.

Questions on CloudSearch Pricing

62. How will I be charged and billed for my use of Amazon CloudSearch?

There are no set-up fees or commitments to begin using the service. Following the end of the month, your credit card will automatically be charged for that month’s usage. You can view your charges for the current billing period at any time on the AWS website by logging into your Amazon Web Services account and clicking Account Activity under Your Web Services Account.

63. How much does it cost to use Amazon CloudSearch?

The cost of using Amazon CloudSearch depends on the resources you use and the level of service you need. CloudSearch is a pay-as-you-go service, so you only pay for the resources you use.

The main cost factors for CloudSearch are:

1. Search instances: The number and size of the search instances you use will affect your costs. CloudSearch offers a range of instance types, ranging from small to large, and you can choose the type that best fits your needs.
2. Data transfer: You will also be charged for data transferred in and out of CloudSearch. This includes data transferred to and from Amazon S3, as well as data transferred to and from the Internet.
3. Data storage: CloudSearch charges for the storage of your data and index. The amount of storage you need will depend on the size of your data and how frequently you update it.
4. Request charges: CloudSearch charges for requests to the service, including search requests, indexing requests, and requests to update or delete data.

To get a more accurate estimate of the cost of using CloudSearch, you can use the AWS Price Calculator. This tool allows you to enter your specific usage and resource requirements and provides an estimate of the cost of using CloudSearch.

64. Is a free trial available for Amazon CloudSearch?

Yes, a free trial is available for new CloudSearch customers. For more information, see Amazon CloudSearch 30-Day Free Trial.

65. How much does it cost to use the new version of Amazon CloudSearch?

There are no changes to the pricing structure for Amazon CloudSearch at this time. See the Pricing page for more information.

66. Are there any cost savings to using the new version of Amazon CloudSearch?

The latest version of Amazon CloudSearch features advanced index compression and supports larger indexes on each instance type. This makes the new version of Amazon CloudSearch more efficient than the previous version and can result in significant cost savings.

67. What is a search instance?

A search instance is a single search engine in the cloud that indexes documents and responds to search requests. It has a finite amount of RAM and CPU resources for indexing data and processing requests.

68. What is a search domain and how do I create one?

A search domain is a data container and a set of services that make the data searchable. These services include:

• A document service that allows you to upload data to your domain for indexing.
• A search service that allows you to perform search requests against your indexed data.
• A configuration service for controlling your domain’s behavior (including relevance ranking).

You can create, manage, and delete search domains using the AWS Management Console, AWS SDKs, or AWS CLI.

69. How much data can I upload to my search domain?

The number of partitions you need depends on your data and configuration, so the maximum data you can upload is the data set that when your search configuration is applied results in 10 search partitions. When you exceed your search partition limit, your domain will stop accepting uploads until you delete documents and re-index your domain. If you need more than 10 search partitions.

70. Can a search domain be deployed in more than 2 Availability Zones?

No. The maximum number of Availability Zones a domain can be deployed in is two.

71. Can I modify the Multi-AZ configuration on my search domain?

Yes, you can modify the Multi-AZ configuration on your search domain in Amazon CloudSearch.

By default, CloudSearch creates a primary and a secondary instance in each Availability Zone (AZ) you select when you create a search domain, for a total of two instances per AZ. This is known as a Multi-AZ configuration and is designed to improve the performance and availability of your search domain