Understanding enterprise data

Many enterprise search applications consolidate data from various data sources. Each separate system may also use a different method of data organization and/or format. To use Apache Solr effectively in these systems, all the important data that is to be searched must be fed to the Solr engine, and it goes through a complete process chain (which is explained in brief in Chapter 1, Understanding Apache Solr). Interestingly, since this data is fed only to generate indexing, we do not really have to worry about the formatting, and other presentation aspects of this data. However, if the expectation from enterprise search engines is also to provide an excellent browsing experience, each data element should carry structure information. This information is extracted by Apache Solr and is used to provide further dimensional navigation for a better user experience, that is, facets.

Note

Each unit of data objects is called a document in Solr. Each document contains multiple...