BYTE the Cloud

Chris 0:00
Hey everyone, welcome to our deep dive, and today we're taking a close look at Amazon OpenSearch service, uh huh, specifically how it's used for analytics. Yeah, it's becoming a real game changer for cloud engineers, especially with those huge data sets we're all working with these days. Right by the time we're done here, you'll have a solid understanding of OpenSearch service, how it fits into the whole AWS landscape, and you'll be ready to tackle those AWS exam questions. Yeah,

Kelly 0:30
those are important for sure. So what's really interesting about OpenSearch service is that it's really built for the kind of data challenges that we face every day as cloud engineers. We're talking mountains of log files, application metrics just streaming in constantly, and we need to make sense of it, all right, extract some meaningful insights. It's

Chris 0:49
not like open search service is kind of like a search bar, yeah, but on steroids or something exactly. It

Kelly 0:54
actually evolved from Elastic Search. Oh, okay, so it's got a strong open source foundation, but AWS took it and basically supercharged it for the cloud. Makes sense? Yeah, they really focus on scalability and how well it integrates with other AWS services. So let's

Chris 1:08
get into some specifics here. Okay, what are some real world examples of how cloud engineers are using OpenSearch for analytics?

Kelly 1:17
Well, one area where it really shines is gaming okay? So imagine you're a game developer, and you're trying to understand how players are behaving in your game. Yeah, open search can analyze everything, like their actions, what they buy, even social interactions, all in real time. Whoa. You can fine tune the gameplay, personalized offers, even predict if someone's about to stop playing. Oh, wow. It's like having a crystal ball, but powered by data that's wild. Yeah, it's pretty it's like those recommendations you get in those Yeah, online games, exactly.

Chris 1:48
And that's just one example, right? Another big area is IoT analytics, okay? So think of a network of sensors collecting data, maybe from wind turbines. OpenSearch

Kelly 1:57
can analyze that data to spot patterns, detect anything unusual, and even predict potential maintenance issues before they cause any downtime. Oh, wow. It's like having a virtual maintenance crew on the job. 24/7,

Chris 2:09
so it's not just about looking at the past, it's about predicting the future.

Kelly 2:13
That's exactly it interesting that predictive capability is really powerful for us. Yeah, it's not just collecting data. It's about understanding what it means and using that to make smart decisions.

Chris 2:23
Okay, I'm starting to get why OpenSearch is becoming so popular. Yeah, it's a pretty powerful tool. So let's dive a little deeper now. Okay, what are some of those key features and benefits that make OpenSearch so attractive to cloud engineers? Well,

Kelly 2:40
one of the biggest advantages is that it's fully managed by AWS. Okay? You don't have to worry about the infrastructure. You know, AWS takes care of all that, provisioning servers, setting up clusters, making sure it's all highly available. So

Chris 2:53
you can just focus on analyzing the data, right? Exactly, not messing with servers.

Kelly 2:57
You don't have to spend those late nights troubleshooting server issues, thank goodness for that. Yeah, right. And because it's managed, it's also incredibly scalable. You can easily adjust the size of your cluster, okay, to handle whatever workload you've got going on, right? So you suddenly have a ton more data, like from a big marketing campaign, yeah, exactly. Or a new product launch with OpenSearch service, you can scale up your cluster on demand, no problem, handle that increased load, and then when things calm down, you just scale it back down.

Chris 3:27
That's perfect for the cloud, where you're dealing with unpredictable traffic all the time, right? You don't want to overspend, but you also don't want to be caught off guard. Yeah, you need that flexibility. You mentioned integration with other AWS services before, can you give some specific examples of how OpenSearch fits into that bigger AWS ecosystem? Absolutely.

Kelly 3:48
One really powerful integration is with Amazon Kinesis data firehose. Okay? This service lets you stream real time data from a bunch of different sources directly into your OpenSearch domain. So it's like a pipeline, yeah? Like a high speed pipeline that

Chris 4:05
feeds your data right into OpenSearch for instant analysis, right? No

Kelly 4:08
more batch processing or waiting for data to load. You can analyze it as it comes

Chris 4:13
in. That's huge for real time monitoring or fraud detection, exactly.

Kelly 4:17
And another key integration is with AWS Lambda you can use Lambda functions to trigger actions based on the insights you're getting from your open search data. Oh, wow. So for example, you could have a Lambda function that automatically sends an alert if a certain threshold is exceeded in your application metrics, or even trigger a scaling event to adjust your infrastructure dynamically. Whoa, so

Chris 4:42
it's like automated responses based on what your OpenSearch data is telling

Kelly 4:45
you. It takes the manual effort out of monitoring and managing your applications. That's super cool. Yeah, and it doesn't stop there. Okay, you can connect OpenSearch service to Amazon S3 for storing those large data sets. Use Amazon Athena to query. Your data using SQL, and even visualize your insights using Amazon QuickSight. Wow.

Chris 5:04
So OpenSearch is really woven into the whole Fabric of AWS. It

Kelly 5:09
really is. There are so many ways to connect it to other services and build these powerful, data driven solutions. But

Chris 5:15
I imagine, even with all this power and flexibility, yeah, there are some limitations, right? There always are, what are some of the trade offs or gotchas that we should be aware of with OpenSearch service? Well, one

Kelly 5:26
thing to keep in mind is that OpenSearch, like many no school databases, prioritizes speed and scalability over strict consistency. Okay, so in some scenarios, you might not have a perfectly up to the second view of your data across all the nodes in your cluster. So

Chris 5:42
it's a trade off between getting answers quickly and ensuring that every single bit of data is perfectly in sync

Kelly 5:50
exactly for a lot of use cases, especially with real time analytics, this trade off is totally fine, right? But if you need absolute consistency for every single transaction a traditional relational database might be a better fit.

Chris 6:05
It's all about picking the right tool for the job, absolutely understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each one, right? Another

Kelly 6:12
thing to consider is cost optimization. Okay? While open search service makes it easy to scale, it's important to right size your resources you know, to avoid unnecessary costs, right? There's a famous example with Amazon Prime, where they initially built this very granular microservice based architecture, yeah, I've heard of that one which ended up being way more expensive to run than a more traditional approach. It's

Chris 6:36
a good reminder that you have to understand your workload patterns, right and pick an architecture that balances scalability with cost efficiency, exactly,

Kelly 6:45
and that applies to open search as well. You want to make sure you're choosing the right instance types, storage options and those cluster configurations to match your specific needs and budget.

Chris 6:54
Okay, so we've laid the groundwork for understanding OpenSearch service. Yeah, we've covered a lot. Let's shift gears a bit and talk about how this all plays into aging those AWS exams. Okay, I know our listeners are keen on getting those certifications, and open search is definitely a topic that comes up. It's a big one. So let's dive into some example questions and scenarios that you might see on the exam. Sounds

Kelly 7:16
good. Okay, so let's imagine a scenario where you need to let your OpenSearch service domain securely access data that's stored in an S3 bucket. Ooh, that's sensitive. Yeah, it's a pretty class and security challenge, especially with all the sensitive data we have in the cloud these days, right? So how would you go about setting up that access? Well,

Chris 7:36
I know IAM is like the gatekeeper in AWS, controlling who can access what you got

Kelly 7:41
it IAM or identity and access management is key here. Yeah, think of IAM policies, like those badges that give you access to specific areas. So in this case, we need to set up the right IAM policies and roles to make sure our OpenSearch domain can read the data from that S3 bucket.

Chris 7:59
Okay, so it's like giving OpenSearch a special ID card to read that S3 bucket. Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. But how do we actually make that happen? What are the steps? Well, first

Kelly 8:09
you would create an IAM role and attach it to your OpenSearch service domain. This role is like the identity that OpenSearch uses when it needs to access the bucket. So

Chris 8:20
it's like a separate user account just for open search. Yeah, exactly. And

Kelly 8:23
then you would define an IAM policy that specifically allows read access to that S3 bucket. Okay, this policy gets attached to the IAM role you just created, right? So now OpenSearch has permission to read from the bucket. But

Chris 8:35
what about the bucket itself? Doesn't it need permission settings too?

Kelly 8:38
You're absolutely right. You need to configure a bucket policy on the S3 side that explicitly allows access from that IAM role that's associated with your OpenSearch domain, so like a double check, making sure everything matches up exactly. It's like a three step process, okay? You have the IAM role for open search, the im policy granting access, and then the bucket policy on S3 confirming it all like a

Chris 9:01
security handshake, right? A security handshake between open search and S3 Yeah,

Kelly 9:05
making sure everyone is who they say they are and have the right permissions. I

Chris 9:08
bet there are tons of JSON examples in the AWS documentation for this kind of thing. Oh, yeah, definitely, all over the place. So knowing how to read and understand those is super important for the exam. For

Kelly 9:19
sure, it's not just about knowing what IAM is, right? It's about knowing how to use it in real situations.

Chris 9:25
Okay, let's switch gears a bit. Okay. Imagine you're using OpenSearch for some complex analytics, which ends up generating a ton of temporary files. Okay? You need a place to store these files, something that's cost effective but still performs well. Yeah. What would you recommend? Well, we've talked

Kelly 9:41
about EBS volumes and instant store volumes, but in this case, there's a third option that's specifically designed for open search. Oh, really. It's called Ultra warm storage. Ultra warm storage, yeah, think of it like the Goldilocks solution for open search. It's not as fast as hot storage, which. Uses those SSDs, but it's way faster than cold storage, which relies on hard drives. Ultra warm finds a nice balance using a mix of SSDs and hard drives. Okay, so you get good performance at a much more affordable price.

Chris 10:12
So it's that middle ground good for data. You access a lot, but don't need instantly, exactly,

Kelly 10:18
and here's why it's perfect for this scenario. Ultrawarm storage is really good at handling frequent updates to your data. It uses something called segment merging, which basically combines those smaller data segments into larger ones, reducing the overhead of constantly adding new information. So if

Chris 10:38
I'm running analytics, it spit out a ton of temporary files. Yeah, ultra warm storage is the way to go. Exactly.

Kelly 10:44
It's cost effective, performs well and handles those updates smoothly. All right. Now, let's switch gears again and talk about deploying open search securely and making sure it's compliant with regulations. Okay, let's say you need to make sure your open search domain meets the requirements of HIPAss, HIPAy. That's a big one. Yeah, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, right? It covers all that protected health information, so things like patient records, exactly, very sensitive data.

Chris 11:12
What do we need to do to make sure our OpenSearch domain is HIPAss compliant? Well,

Kelly 11:17
HIPAA compliance has a lot of different aspects to it, but open search service gives you the tools and features you need. Okay, good encryption is absolutely crucial, both while data is moving around and when it's stored. We talked about HTTPS for data in transit and encryption at rest, using AWS, KMS, right? Both of those are essential for high

Chris 11:39
pay, so even if someone gets unauthorized access, yeah, the data is useless without those keys.

Kelly 11:45
It's just gibberish to them. That's reassuring. Yeah, for sure. What else access control is another huge part of it. You need to use IAM policies right to manage who can access your open search domain. Makes sense only authorized personnel, exactly. And with IAM, you can get really specific, even controlling access to specific indices or types of documents within OpenSearch, different levels of security clearance, right? It's like having different security zones within your domain, and

Chris 12:13
when you're dealing with sensitive data like phi, yeah, you might even want to add multi factor authentication. That's a good idea an extra layer of protection, so it's not just a password anymore, right?

Kelly 12:23
You need something else, like a code from your phone. Okay. So another requirement with IPA is audit logging. Okay? You need to keep track of every single action that happens within your open search domain, so

Chris 12:36
like who accessed what data and when

Kelly 12:39
exactly, that's super important for proving compliance and investigating any potential security incidents, like security cameras, recording everything, yeah, a full audit trail, right? And lastly, don't forget about the physical security of the infrastructure that's hosting your open search

Chris 12:54
domain. Oh, right, the actual servers and data centers, yeah,

Kelly 12:57
this is where using a reputable cloud provider like AWS, is a big advantage. They meet those really strict IPA physical security requirements that sense. So it's not just about the software and the policies. The physical environment has to be secure and compliant to

Chris 13:14
Okay? So we've covered encryption, access control, audit logging and physical security. Yeah, we've hit all the main points. It's impressive how OpenSearch service gives you the tools to do all that, right? It's like a built in security suite. It really is impressive all the security features built into OpenSearch. Yeah, AWS has done a great job there. But let's get back to those exam scenarios. Okay,

Kelly 13:35
sounds good.

Chris 13:36
I know our listeners are eager for more of those.

Kelly 13:38
All right, so how about this? You're asked to pick the best storage option for your open search service domain. Okay? And you need something with high performance, scalability and D it needs to handle frequent updates to your data.

Chris 13:53
So we're talking about those storage options again. Yeah, we've covered EBS volumes and instant store volumes. But is there another option that's specifically for open search? You're

Kelly 14:05
right on the money. There is. It's called Ultra warm storage. Ultra warm storage, yeah, and it's designed for those open search workloads where you need that balance of performance cost and the ability to handle those frequent updates.

Chris 14:17
So what makes Ultra warm storage so special? Well, it's kind of like

Kelly 14:20
a middle ground between hot storage, which is super fast but expensive, and cold storage, which is more affordable but slower to access, right? Ultra warm uses a combination of SSDs and hard drives. So you get that sweet spot of performance and cost efficiency that makes sense. And the really cool part is how it handles those frequent updates. Okay. How's

Chris 14:42
it do that?

Kelly 14:42
It uses a technique called segment merging, okay, so it combines those smaller segments of data into bigger ones, which makes it much more efficient when your data is constantly being updated. So

Chris 14:53
in this scenario where we need high performance scalability and can handle those frequent updates, yeah. A. Dorm storage would be the winner. You

Kelly 15:01
got it, it checks all the boxes. Nice. All right, let's move on to another common exam topic, okay, migrating data to open search service. Okay, so imagine you've got this huge data set sitting on your company's servers, and you need to move it to your open search domain in AWS, right? What service would you use for that migration?

Chris 15:20
That sounds like a big job moving all that data efficiently and securely.

Kelly 15:24
It is, but AWS has a service called DataSync that's built for exactly this kind of large scale data transfer. DataSync, yeah, it can connect to all those on premises storage systems, whether they're using NFS, SMB or other protocols, and securely move your data to various AWS services, including OpenSearch service. So

Chris 15:44
it was like creating a pipeline between your on premises systems and the cloud

Kelly 15:48
Exactly. DataSync takes care of all the complexity involved in moving large data sets, encryption, data integrity checks, automatic retries if there's a problem. It really simplifies things, right? It makes the migration process much smoother.

Chris 16:01
No more manual copying or writing custom scripts Exactly.

Kelly 16:05
And DataSync is really efficient too. Okay? It uses a multi threaded, parallel transfer approach, so it moves that data as quickly

Chris 16:12
as possible. So no more waiting weEKS for a big data transfer to finish, right?

Kelly 16:16
It can significantly reduce that migration time, okay,

Chris 16:19
so we've talked about choosing the right storage and migrating data. What about monitoring OpenSearch? That's another important aspect. How do you keep an eye on the health and performance of your OpenSearch domain? Well, this

Kelly 16:31
is where Amazon CloudWatch comes in. CloudWatch, of course, it's the go to service for monitoring pretty much anything in AWS, right? You can set it up to track all sorts of metrics for your open search domain, like CPU utilization, disk usage, query latency, and a bunch more. So

Chris 16:47
it's like a dashboard giving you a real time view of your open search domains health exactly.

Kelly 16:52
You can see how it's performing, how much resources it's using, and the best part about CloudWatch, yeah, you can create alarms based on those metrics. So let's say your CPU usage goes above 80% for a certain amount of time. You can have CloudWatch, send you an alert so you can fix it before it becomes a bigger issue, right? It lets you be proactive. And what kinds of alerts are there? You've got options, email alerts, SMS messages or even trigger actions in other AWS services, using simple notification service. You can

Chris 17:22
really customize those notifications, yeah, to fit your team's workflow. Are there any other tools for monitoring OpenSearch? There are,

Kelly 17:29
especially if you need more specialized or customizable solutions. A lot of folks use open source tools like Prometheus and Grafana with OpenSearch, I've heard of

Chris 17:40
Prometheus. It's supposed to be really powerful. It is. It's designed for

Kelly 17:43
monitoring time series data, which is what OpenSearch generates, right? You can use Prometheus to collect metrics from your OpenSearch domain, store them efficiently, and then query them using his own query language called promql. It's like having a dedicated data analyst. Yeah, and Grafana is often used alongside Prometheus to create those really nice, interactive dashboards so you can visualize and understand your open search metrics in a way that makes sense. So it's all about making that data easier to digest Exactly. And you can even set up alerts within Grafana as well. So you've got

Chris 18:17
CloudWatch for basic monitoring alerting and Prometheus and Grafana for more advanced, customizable setups,

Kelly 18:23
right? It depends on your needs and what your team is comfortable with. Makes sense. And remember, when you're studying for the AWS exams, it's not just about memorizing facts and figures. It's about understanding the concepts, the trade offs, and how to apply those to real world situations.

Chris 18:41
Yeah, those scenario based questions can be tricky. They can

Kelly 18:45
but if you understand the material, you'll be able to figure them out. So

Chris 18:49
don't be afraid to get some hands on experience. Definitely set up an open search domain in your AWS account and play around with it.

Kelly 18:56
Yeah, the more you experiment, the better you'll understand it. Well,

Chris 18:59
I think we've covered a lot today. We

Kelly 19:01
have from the basics of OpenSearch to some pretty advanced topics. We

Chris 19:05
talked about security, compliance monitoring, and, of course, those exam tips. I

Kelly 19:09
hope everyone's feeling more confident about using OpenSearch service and ready to

Chris 19:13
tackle those AWS exams. Exactly.

Thanks for joining us, everyone.

Kelly 19:17
Thanks for listening. Keep

Chris 19:18
learning, keep exploring, and we'll see you next time you.