How to setup Lucene search for a B2B web app?
- by Bill Paetzke
Given:
5000 databases (spread out over 5 servers)
1 database per client (so you can infer there are 1000 clients)
2 to 2000 users per client (let's say avg is 100 users per client)
Clients (databases) come and go every day (let's assume most remain for at least one year)
Let's stay agnostic of language or sql brand, since Lucene (and Solr) have a breadth of support
The Question:
How would you setup Lucene search so that each client can only search within its database?
How would you setup the index(es)?
Would you need to add a filter to all search queries?
If a client cancelled, how would you delete their (part of the) index? (this may be trivial--not sure yet)
Possible Solutions:
Make an index for each client (database)
Pro: Search is faster (than one-index-for-all method). Indices are relative to the size of the client's data.
Con: I'm not sure what this entails, nor do I know if this is beyond Lucene's scope.
Have a single, gigantic index with a database_name field. Always include database_name as a filter.
Pro: Not sure. Maybe good for tech support or billing dept to search all databases for info.
Con: Search is slower (than index-per-client method). Flawed security if query filter removed.
For Example:
Joel Spolsky said in Podcast #11 that his hosted web app product, FogBugz On-Demand, uses Lucene. He has thousands of on-demand clients. And each client gets their own database.
His situation is quite similar to mine. Although, he didn't elaborate on the setup (particularly indices); hence, the need for this question.
One last thing:
I would also accept an answer that uses Solr (the extension of Lucene). Perhaps it's better suited for this problem. Not sure.
