SOLR Training

Lesson 1 • Installing and Running Solr

Guides students through local installation, startup, and basic verification. Hands-on setup ensures a working environment for all later exercises.

Lesson 2 • What Is Apache Solr

Covers Solr's origin, purpose, and position in the search landscape. Establishes context for all subsequent technical topics in the chapter.

Lesson 3 • Solr Architecture Overview

Explains Solr's major components: cores, handlers, and the request pipeline. Students gain a mental model of how a query flows through the system.

Lesson 1 • Understanding the Solr Schema

Explains managed schema vs. classic schema.xml and their trade-offs. Sets the foundation for all field and type definitions in this chapter.

Lesson 2 • Analysis Chains and Text Processing

Teaches how tokenizers, filters, and analyzers transform text at index and query time. Proper chain design directly affects search quality.

Lesson 3 • Dynamic Fields and Copy Fields

Introduces dynamic field patterns and copy field directives for flexible schema design. Students reduce schema maintenance overhead while supporting diverse query needs.

Lesson 4 • Field Types and Data Modeling

Covers primitive and complex field types, including text, numeric, date, and geo. Students map domain data to appropriate Solr field types.

Lesson 1 • Using SolrJ for Java Clients

Introduces the SolrJ client library for programmatic indexing and querying from Java. Students build a simple indexing application using SolrJ.

Lesson 2 • Atomic Updates and Optimistic Concurrency

Covers partial document updates and version-based conflict detection. Students apply atomic updates to avoid full document rewrites in high-throughput scenarios.

Lesson 3 • Data Import Handler and Connectors

Teaches the Data Import Handler (DIH) for pulling data from databases and files. Students configure a DIH job and schedule incremental imports.

Lesson 4 • Indexing via the Update API

Covers JSON, XML, and CSV document submission through the Update Request Handler. Students index sample documents and verify results immediately.

Lesson 1 • Faceting and Aggregations

Introduces field facets, range facets, pivot facets, and JSON Facet API aggregations. Students build navigation and analytics features on top of search results.

Lesson 2 • Filtering, Sorting, and Pagination

Teaches filter queries (fq), sort parameters, and cursor-based pagination for large result sets. Students optimize queries by separating filter caching from scoring.

Lesson 3 • DisMax and eDisMax Query Parsers

Covers the DisMax and Extended DisMax parsers designed for user-facing search boxes. Students configure qf, pf, mm, and boost parameters for relevance tuning.

Lesson 4 • Highlighting and Result Formatting

Covers snippet highlighting, response writers, and field transformers for result presentation. Students configure output formats suited to different client applications.

Lesson 1 • Boosting Strategies

Covers index-time boosts, query-time boosts, and function query boosts for relevance control. Students apply multiple boost strategies and measure their combined effect.

Lesson 2 • Understanding Solr Scoring

Explains the default BM25 similarity model and how field-level boosts affect scores. Students use the debug=query parameter to inspect score explanations.

Lesson 3 • Function Queries and Ranking Formulas

Teaches Solr's function query syntax for math-based ranking signals. Students build custom ranking formulas combining text score with numeric business signals.

Lesson 4 • Learning to Rank with Solr LTR

Introduces the Learning to Rank (LTR) plugin for machine-learned ranking models. Students upload feature stores, train a model, and deploy it for reranking.

Lesson 1 • Distributed Indexing and Querying

Teaches how documents are routed to shards and how distributed queries are merged. Students configure custom routing and optimize cross-shard query performance.

Lesson 2 • SolrCloud Architecture

Explains sharding, replication, and ZooKeeper's role in cluster coordination. Students map SolrCloud concepts to their own scaling requirements.

Lesson 3 • ZooKeeper Operations and Config Management

Covers uploading config sets, managing ZooKeeper znodes, and cluster reconfiguration. Students use the zkcli tool and Config API for safe configuration changes.

Lesson 4 • Replica Types and High Availability

Introduces NRT, TLOG, and PULL replica types and their availability trade-offs. Students select replica strategies that balance indexing throughput with read availability.

Lesson 1 • JVM and Heap Tuning

Covers JVM heap sizing, garbage collector selection, and GC pause minimization. Students apply settings that reduce stop-the-world pauses during peak load.

Lesson 2 • Solr Caching Architecture

Explains the filter cache, query result cache, document cache, and field value cache. Students configure cache sizes and eviction policies for their workloads.

Lesson 3 • Index Optimization and Segment Management

Teaches Lucene segment merging, optimize operations, and index warm-up strategies. Students balance merge overhead against query performance for their index size.

Lesson 4 • Query Performance Profiling

Introduces the debug=timing parameter, slow query logging, and Solr metrics API. Students identify expensive query components and apply targeted optimizations.

Lesson 1 • Monitoring with Metrics and Logging

Introduces Solr's metrics API, JMX integration, and structured logging configuration. Students build dashboards that surface query latency, error rates, and cache hit ratios.

Lesson 2 • Backup, Recovery, and Disaster Planning

Covers snapshot-based backups, replication-based recovery, and RTO/RPO planning. Students design a backup schedule and test restore procedures end to end.

Lesson 3 • Upgrades and Operational Runbooks

Teaches rolling upgrades, compatibility checks, and post-upgrade validation steps. Students create runbooks for routine operations and incident response.

Lesson 4 • Authentication and Authorization

Covers Solr's built-in Basic Auth, Kerberos, and JWT authentication plugins. Students configure role-based access control to protect collections and admin endpoints.