AOSREL04-BP03 Enable index replication for your critical indices - Amazon OpenSearch Service Lens
Implementation guidanceResources

AOSREL04-BP03 Enable index replication for your critical indices

Provide high availability and improved performance in Amazon OpenSearch Service by enabling index replication for critical indices, allowing replicas to handle read operations alongside primaries. This setup maintains access to data and minimizes downtime in case of primary shard unavailability.

Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established: High

Desired outcome: Your critical indices are enabled with replication for improved availability.

Benefits of establishing this best practice:

  • Improved performance: Index replication for critical indices distributes read requests across the OpenSearch Service domain, improving performance and throughput by allowing replicas to handle read operations alongside primaries.

  • Enhanced data availability: If a primary shard becomes unavailable, replicas can automatically take over, providing continued access to your data and minimizing downtime.

Implementation guidance

For high-priority use cases, you can replicate critical indices in real-time using index replication, which maintains an up to date copy of your data. By doing this, you can distribute read requests across your OpenSearch Service domain, improving performance and throughput by allowing replicas to handle read operations alongside primaries. Additionally, if a primary shard becomes unavailable, replicas can automatically take over, providing continued access to your data.

Implementation steps

  • To update the number of replicas for an existing index run the following: 

PUT /my-index/_settings
          {
          "index" : {
          "number_of_replicas" : 2
          }
          }

  • You can also use the auto_expand_replicas feature to dynamically adjust the number of replicas in your OpenSearch Service domain based on changes to the cluster, such as adding or removing data nodes. As a result, your replica count will match the number of data nodes you have at any specific moment.

Note

Adding multiple replicas may not necessarily enhance performance; in some cases, it can cause performance degradation. Therefore, use this feature with caution, and thoroughly test its effects before implementing it in your OpenSearch Service domain. 

PUT /my-index/_settings
          {
          "index" : {
          "auto_expand_replicas" : "0-all"
          }
          }

Resources