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Posted to solr-user@lucene.apache.org by Matthew Runo <mr...@zappos.com> on 2008/04/11 19:35:20 UTC
Zappos's new Solr Site
Hello folks!
First, the link: https://zeta.zappos.com (it's a very early open
beta... we're just very proud of everyone's work and wanted to share
it with you all)
We've been working on a new site here at Zappos for about the last 7
months, with planning going back almost two years. We looked at
Endeca, we looked at Fast, we looked at sooooo many commercial search
engine technologies in that time that I can't even remember them all.
We ended up choosing Solr, and not just because it's free. Solr has a
truly wonderful group of users here who respond to support questions
far faster than most paid support contracts. I've never had a question
that I couldn't get answered on this list, no matter how stupid it's
been (sorry Hoss!) =p
Zappos has a long history of using open source technologies to drive
their business, and have used Apache 1.3 + Perl 5 for the past 8
years. Our new site is written in Java, and is really built around our
Solr index. Solr powers all the navigation and facets, as well as the
brand list and brand pages. One of the issues with our old site was
how database heavy it was, with some pages generating 100s of queries.
Zeta is much better in this regard, and we really think Solr is going
to serve us very well.
Here's some stats on our Solr index... 158,821 documents in about 2
gigs of disk space, running in Tomcat 6 with 10 gigs of ram set aside.
We have 5 servers clustered together, and each runs an instance of
zeta.zappos.com and a local copy of solr. For now, each of these
servers reads from a single Solr index stored on NFS - we'll see how
this works out, and are prepared to store a local copy of the index on
each server.
Thanks, and we'd love any feedback on the new site (keep in mind, some
parts of it aren't quite done).
Matthew Runo
Software Developer
Zappos.com
702.943.7833
Re: Zappos's new Solr Site
Posted by Matthew Runo <mr...@zappos.com>.
We have a dedicated server set up as the "master", with it's own local
index. We have an NFS mount (read-only) on each of the other machines
which the master copies it's index to every 20 minutes. We run a
commit on each "slave" then to force them to open new readers. So far,
it's worked fine. I would suggest having the reading and writing done
to different indexes though, it makes it easier when you can have a
read-only NFS mounted index (no chance of another server updating it
at all).
Thanks!
Matthew Runo
Software Developer
Zappos.com
702.943.7833
On May 2, 2008, at 6:41 AM, Alok Dhir wrote:
> Hey Matt - congratulations on your new site -- it looks great.
>
> I'm curious, after a few weeks of having run this way, what your
> findings are regarding running the shared index on NFS. Any
> problems as of yet?
>
> I assume you're indexing from one machine and calling 'commit' on
> the others on some schedule to get them to 'see' changes.
>
> How is that working out for you?
>
> ---
> Alok K. Dhir
> adhir@symplicity.com
> Symplicity Corporation
> 1 703 351 0200 x 8080
> www.symplicity.com
>
> On Apr 11, 2008, at 1:35 PM, Matthew Runo wrote:
>
>> Hello folks!
>>
>> First, the link: https://zeta.zappos.com (it's a very early open
>> beta... we're just very proud of everyone's work and wanted to
>> share it with you all)
>>
>> We've been working on a new site here at Zappos for about the last
>> 7 months, with planning going back almost two years. We looked at
>> Endeca, we looked at Fast, we looked at sooooo many commercial
>> search engine technologies in that time that I can't even remember
>> them all. We ended up choosing Solr, and not just because it's
>> free. Solr has a truly wonderful group of users here who respond to
>> support questions far faster than most paid support contracts. I've
>> never had a question that I couldn't get answered on this list, no
>> matter how stupid it's been (sorry Hoss!) =p
>>
>> Zappos has a long history of using open source technologies to
>> drive their business, and have used Apache 1.3 + Perl 5 for the
>> past 8 years. Our new site is written in Java, and is really built
>> around our Solr index. Solr powers all the navigation and facets,
>> as well as the brand list and brand pages. One of the issues with
>> our old site was how database heavy it was, with some pages
>> generating 100s of queries. Zeta is much better in this regard, and
>> we really think Solr is going to serve us very well.
>>
>> Here's some stats on our Solr index... 158,821 documents in about
>> 2 gigs of disk space, running in Tomcat 6 with 10 gigs of ram set
>> aside. We have 5 servers clustered together, and each runs an
>> instance of zeta.zappos.com and a local copy of solr. For now, each
>> of these servers reads from a single Solr index stored on NFS -
>> we'll see how this works out, and are prepared to store a local
>> copy of the index on each server.
>>
>> Thanks, and we'd love any feedback on the new site (keep in mind,
>> some parts of it aren't quite done).
>>
>> Matthew Runo
>> Software Developer
>> Zappos.com
>> 702.943.7833
>>
>
Re: Zappos's new Solr Site
Posted by Alok Dhir <ad...@symplicity.com>.
Hey Matt - congratulations on your new site -- it looks great.
I'm curious, after a few weeks of having run this way, what your
findings are regarding running the shared index on NFS. Any problems
as of yet?
I assume you're indexing from one machine and calling 'commit' on the
others on some schedule to get them to 'see' changes.
How is that working out for you?
---
Alok K. Dhir
adhir@symplicity.com
Symplicity Corporation
1 703 351 0200 x 8080
www.symplicity.com
On Apr 11, 2008, at 1:35 PM, Matthew Runo wrote:
> Hello folks!
>
> First, the link: https://zeta.zappos.com (it's a very early open
> beta... we're just very proud of everyone's work and wanted to share
> it with you all)
>
> We've been working on a new site here at Zappos for about the last 7
> months, with planning going back almost two years. We looked at
> Endeca, we looked at Fast, we looked at sooooo many commercial
> search engine technologies in that time that I can't even remember
> them all. We ended up choosing Solr, and not just because it's free.
> Solr has a truly wonderful group of users here who respond to
> support questions far faster than most paid support contracts. I've
> never had a question that I couldn't get answered on this list, no
> matter how stupid it's been (sorry Hoss!) =p
>
> Zappos has a long history of using open source technologies to drive
> their business, and have used Apache 1.3 + Perl 5 for the past 8
> years. Our new site is written in Java, and is really built around
> our Solr index. Solr powers all the navigation and facets, as well
> as the brand list and brand pages. One of the issues with our old
> site was how database heavy it was, with some pages generating 100s
> of queries. Zeta is much better in this regard, and we really think
> Solr is going to serve us very well.
>
> Here's some stats on our Solr index... 158,821 documents in about 2
> gigs of disk space, running in Tomcat 6 with 10 gigs of ram set
> aside. We have 5 servers clustered together, and each runs an
> instance of zeta.zappos.com and a local copy of solr. For now, each
> of these servers reads from a single Solr index stored on NFS -
> we'll see how this works out, and are prepared to store a local copy
> of the index on each server.
>
> Thanks, and we'd love any feedback on the new site (keep in mind,
> some parts of it aren't quite done).
>
> Matthew Runo
> Software Developer
> Zappos.com
> 702.943.7833
>
Re: Zappos's new Solr Site
Posted by Brian Mansell <li...@gmail.com>.
Matthew -
Thanks for sharing this example. The Zeta site search works well and
provided results to my test queries instantly.
cheers,
--bemansell
On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 10:35 AM, Matthew Runo <mr...@zappos.com> wrote:
> Hello folks!
>
> First, the link: https://zeta.zappos.com (it's a very early open beta...
> we're just very proud of everyone's work and wanted to share it with you
> all)
>
> We've been working on a new site here at Zappos for about the last 7
> months, with planning going back almost two years. We looked at Endeca, we
> looked at Fast, we looked at sooooo many commercial search engine
> technologies in that time that I can't even remember them all. We ended up
> choosing Solr, and not just because it's free. Solr has a truly wonderful
> group of users here who respond to support questions far faster than most
> paid support contracts. I've never had a question that I couldn't get
> answered on this list, no matter how stupid it's been (sorry Hoss!) =p
>
> Zappos has a long history of using open source technologies to drive their
> business, and have used Apache 1.3 + Perl 5 for the past 8 years. Our new
> site is written in Java, and is really built around our Solr index. Solr
> powers all the navigation and facets, as well as the brand list and brand
> pages. One of the issues with our old site was how database heavy it was,
> with some pages generating 100s of queries. Zeta is much better in this
> regard, and we really think Solr is going to serve us very well.
>
> Here's some stats on our Solr index... 158,821 documents in about 2 gigs
> of disk space, running in Tomcat 6 with 10 gigs of ram set aside. We have 5
> servers clustered together, and each runs an instance of zeta.zappos.comand a local copy of solr. For now, each of these servers reads from a single
> Solr index stored on NFS - we'll see how this works out, and are prepared to
> store a local copy of the index on each server.
>
> Thanks, and we'd love any feedback on the new site (keep in mind, some
> parts of it aren't quite done).
>
> Matthew Runo
> Software Developer
> Zappos.com
> 702.943.7833
>
>