

Ask HN: search and relational database integration as a service? - rpedela

Are there any hosted services which integrate a full-text search server (Solr, ElasticSearch, etc) with a relational database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc)?
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ScottWhigham
Microsoft has their SQL Azure service but, as of right now, they do not
support FT (although SQL Server has robust support for FT). My assumption is
that this will be supported in the coming few years though - FT is becoming a
must for many BI situations and BI has been driving the MSFT SQL Server team
for almost a decade.

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rpedela
How does SQL Server's full-text search support compare to Solr or
ElasticSearch? I have used full-text search in MySQL and PostgreSQL and have
not been impressed.

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ScottWhigham
I wish I knew - I'm mostly a SQL Server only guy! Just posting b/c, at some
point, I suspect they will entire this market in in a big way.

Also, since a lot of companies host SQL Server (Amazon, Rackspace, etc), it's
possible that they support SQL Server's FT service.

[http://aws.amazon.com/rds/sqlserver/#features](http://aws.amazon.com/rds/sqlserver/#features)

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rpedela
Thanks, I appreciate it. I am sure you are right so the question is when?

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jka
Not that I'm aware of, but I have considered that there could be a market for
them before too :)

What kind of approach are you thinking of? Using the database as the primary
store, and reflecting any row changes in the corresponding search indices?

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rpedela
How did you guess? Interested in beta testing? :)

Yes to the database as the primary store and syncing to the search server then
adding a "search clause" to SELECT essentially for seamless integration.

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jka
Absolutely, drop me a line - my mail is jay at jp hyphen hosting dot net

Glad to provide feedback!

