Comparing Solr and Elasticsearch common business tasks and their impact on the search index

There are impacts to the search index when certain business tasks are performed. This topic describes the Solr and Elasticsearch comparison for the common business tasks and their impact on the search index. The following table lists the common business tasks and reindexing types for Solr and Elasticsearch. The table groups business tasks and reindexing types by business components.

Business component​ Business task​​ Reindexing type​​​​ (Solr Search) Reind​​exing type (Elasticsearch)
Catalog: master or sales ca​​talog Linking or unlinking to an existing category from a catalog tree. Delta: Product, Category indices (*) NRT: Category Product indices
Changing an association of existing product to a catalog. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index (catalog asset store)
Note: Full reindexing for all indices of the extended (e-site) store is required to reflect on the storefront the products associated with the linked category.
Changing the default catalog for an extended site. Full: All indices Full: All indices only for the extended site store
Creating a new sales catalog. Full: All indices Full: All indices for store on which the new sales catalog is applied.
Store: direct business model Adding a new stand-alone direct model store that uses a separate master catalog. Full: All indices Full: All indices for only the new Store
Store: extended business model Adding a new extended site that uses an existing indexed catalog asset store. Not indexed Full: All indices for only the new Store
Adding a product, or delete an existing product from an existing extended site. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Adding or updating an existing Store configuration Not indexed Full: All indices for only the new Store​
Catalog entry: product, package, bundle, kit, item Adding a product, or deleting an existing product Delta: Product index NRT: Product index​
Updating any existing property or adding a property to an existing catalog entry, such as the product description, product name, brand name, thumbnail, images, SKU Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Updating any existing or adding a new package or bundle. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Associating or removing a product attribute from an existing product. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Reparenting a catalog entry Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Category Adding a category. Delta: Category index NRT: Category index​, URL index
Deleting an existing category. Full: All indices NRT: Category, URL index, maybe Product indices
Updating any existing property or adding a property to an existing category, such as the category description, thumbnail, images. Delta: Category index NRT: Category index, URL index
Reparenting a category Delta: Product, Category indices NRT: Category, Product indices
Merchandising association Updating or adding a new merchandising association Not indexed NRT: Product index​
Attribute Dictionary attributes Adding or removing any value of a newly created attribute in the attribute dictionary. Not indexed NRT: Attribute index​
Updating any value of an existing attribute in the attribute dictionary associated with products. Delta: Product index NRT: Attribute, Product indices
Attributes Adding or removing any value of an existing product attribute. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Adding or removing an existing descriptive or defining attribute of a product or item Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Enabling or disabling an existing product attribute to be facetable. Delta: Product index NRT: Attribute, Product indices
Enabling or disabling a facet to be displayable in a sales category. Not indexed NRT: Attribute, Product, Category indices
Associated asset Uploading a new attachment and associates with an existing product. Not indexed ​​​NRT: Product index
Reuploading or deleting an existing attachment associated with existing products. Not indexed NRT: Product index
Price Updating any existing or adding a new (default) price rule to a store. Full: All indices Full: Product index
Updating store default offer price for a product. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Updating list price for a product. Delta: Product index NRT: Product index
Contract Creating or changing a Catalog filter of an existing contract. Full: All indices Full: Product, Category, Catalog indices
Marketing Adding, changing, or deleting an existing marketing activity (Web, Dialog). Not indexed Not indexed
Search rule Adding, changing, or deleting an existing search rule. Not indexed Not indexed
Search term association Adding, changing, or deleting an existing search term association. Not indexed NRT: Product index
Versioning Rollback or forward to another version of a category. Delta: Product, Category indices Not supported
Rollback or forward to another version of a product. Delta: Product index Not supported
Rollback or forward to another version of a product. Delta: Product index Not supported
Inventory Updating the inventory search index. Full: Inventory index ​NRT: Product index
Natural Language - Name-Entity-Recognition Adding or updating existing custom NER mapping / classification. Not supported Full: Product index
Adding or updating existing custom MatchMaker configuration. Not supported Full: Product index
Important: (*) A delta reindex is performed only if the number of changes that are affected by the business task are less than the DeltaIndexingThreshold threshold.