The Best way to use ElasticSearch in Spring java framework

Question

I'm developing a system which is planning to use elasticsearch as an data repository. I'm trying to choose the best way to develop my application that can index and query data from elasticsearch. The system I have is built on top of Spring framework.

Is it a good choice to use Spring-data-elasticsearch(https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-data-elasticsearch)?

Or is it a good choice to use elasticsearch core libraries itself?

I need to handle nested data (inner object) but Spring-data-elasticsearch seems to have no operations for that recently.

I hope I can find a solution for the question. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Spring data elasticsearch supports most of the common feature set of elasticsearch including Nested, Inner Objects and Parent Child (recently).

When you said that want to use nested data (inner object), please be clear as elasticsearch has two concepts: Inner Object and Nested Object.

Detailed explanation can be found at managing relationship in elasticsearch

Nested document Example

Person Entity:

@Document(indexName = "person" , type = "user")

public class Person {

    @Id
    private String id;

    private String name;

    @Field( type = FieldType.Nested)
    private List<Car> car;

    // setters-getters
}

Car Entity:

public class Car {
    private String name;
    private String model;
    //setters and getters 
}

Setting up data:

Person foo = new Person();
foo.setName("Foo");
foo.setId("1");

List<Car> cars = new ArrayList<Car>();
Car subaru = new Car();
subaru.setName("Subaru");
subaru.setModel("Imprezza");
cars.add(subaru);
foo.setCar(cars);

Indexing:

IndexQuery indexQuery = new IndexQuery();
indexQuery.setId(foo.getId());
indexQuery.setObject(foo);

//creating mapping
elasticsearchTemplate.putMapping(Person.class);
//indexing document
elasticsearchTemplate.index(indexQuery);
//refresh
elasticsearchTemplate.refresh(Person.class, true);

Searching:

QueryBuilder builder = nestedQuery("car", boolQuery()
    .must(termQuery("car.name", "subaru"))
    .must(termQuery("car.model", "imprezza")));

SearchQuery searchQuery = new NativeSearchQueryBuilder().withQuery(builder).build();
List<Person> persons = elasticsearchTemplate.queryForList(searchQuery, Person.class);

You can find more test cases about Nested and Inner Object at Nested Object Tests

Answer 2

You can use IndexQuery for save AND update:

public Serializable saveOrUpdate(Car car) {
    return template.index(new IndexQueryBuilder().withObject(car).build());
}

Answer 3

Spring data elasticsearch uses transport client, and transport client is not supported by AWS elasticsearch. AWS elasticsearch supports only HTTP clients. So i think the best java client for elasticsearch is JEST. It also provides support for AWS authentication using IAM.