# Configuring replica nodes at a global level
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [September 24, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741 "2013-09-24T17:47:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Phani](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Phani)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741/1 "2013-09-24T17:47:51Z")
Again some newbie questions. I'm wondering how to configure a replica node
at a global level rather than at index level. These are the questions that
I have :
1. Can we configure that nodes 2 & 3 are replicas of node 1 in ES ? If
yes, how ? - This is because I don't want to explicitly configure the
settings for index level and what ever the replicas are for a primary shard
should automatically replicate the indexes/data that are part of the
primary shard.
1. I'm wondering if there is any property like node.replica = true
and using the same node name in case of replicas will be the solution to
this.
2. We have index level replica settings for shards - Can we control on
which nodes the index replicas exists (this is in some sense related to 1st
point) ?
Thanks,
Phani.
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### Author:  [@Boaz\_Leskes](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Boaz_Leskes)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2013, 10:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741/2 "2013-09-25T10:18:38Z")
Hi Pahni,
I'm not 100% sure of what your are trying to achieve - but here are some
tools that would probably help. The thing to realise is that replicas are
copies of index shards and automatically spread out through the cluster to
balance usage. There is no notion of a replica node but rather a replica
shard.
That said, things you can do to control replica counts:
1. Use index templates to control the default number of replicas
(recommended)
: [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-templates/)
2. Use elasticsearch.yml to control the default number of replicas (you
have to make sure all nodes have the same yml)
3. Use allocation filtering which nodes indices are allocated
on: [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/index-modules/allocation/)
Hope this helps,
Boaz
On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 7:47:51 PM UTC+2, Phani Chaitanya wrote:
> Again some newbie questions. I'm wondering how to configure a replica node
> at a global level rather than at index level. These are the questions that
> I have :
>
> 1. Can we configure that nodes 2 & 3 are replicas of node 1 in ES ? If
> yes, how ? - This is because I don't want to explicitly configure the
> settings for index level and what ever the replicas are for a primary shard
> should automatically replicate the indexes/data that are part of the
> primary shard.
> 1. I'm wondering if there is any property like node.replica = true
> and using the same node name in case of replicas will be the solution to
> this.
>
> 2. We have index level replica settings for shards - Can we control on
> which nodes the index replicas exists (this is in some sense related to 1st
> point) ?
>
> Thanks,
> Phani.
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### Author:  [@Phani](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Phani)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741/3 "2013-09-25T17:01:39Z")
Hi Boaz,
Thanks for the pointers. I'll try to put my question in a different way.
May be I'm trying to draw analogies w.r.t SolrCloud which is why I'm
getting these questions. So, I'll start with the following question.
In SolrCloud when you say that you have 2 shards (each shard is a solr
server) and start 4 servers then two among those will be the replicas of
the 2 primary(leader) shards. May be it's wrong to compare with SolrCloud
but just wondering the shards to ES node mapping. An ES node can have more
than 1 shard ? (some of them can be primary shards & some can be replicas
based on the balancing done by ES ?).
And, I've a question on how the replicas of shards are decided. Lets say
I've configured that number of shards as 4 and number of replicas as 1
which I assume means that each shard will have 1 replica. Again in
SolrCloud, after starting that many servers that you specify as the number
of shards & the servers that you start later will automatically become
replicas. How are replica shards decided in ES ?
Also, for your 2nd point where you mentioned to make sure all nodes have
the same yml. Is it for the index level settings in yml ? because we can
change other parameters in yml which are node specific right ? like
node.data & node.master as true/false and the like.
Thanks,
Phani.
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 3:18 AM, Boaz Leskes [b.leskes@gmail.com](mailto:b.leskes@gmail.com) wrote:
> Hi Pahni,
>
> I'm not 100% sure of what your are trying to achieve - but here are some
> tools that would probably help. The thing to realise is that replicas are
> copies of index shards and automatically spread out through the cluster to
> balance usage. There is no notion of a replica node but rather a replica
> shard.
>
> That said, things you can do to control replica counts:
>
> 1. Use index templates to control the default number of replicas
> (recommended) :
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-templates/)
> 2. Use elasticsearch.yml to control the default number of replicas (you
> have to make sure all nodes have the same yml)
> 3. Use allocation filtering which nodes indices are allocated on:
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/index-modules/allocation/)
>
> Hope this helps,
> Boaz
>
> On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 7:47:51 PM UTC+2, Phani Chaitanya wrote:
>
> > Again some newbie questions. I'm wondering how to configure a replica
> > node at a global level rather than at index level. These are the questions
> > that I have :
> >
> > 1. Can we configure that nodes 2 & 3 are replicas of node 1 in ES ?
> > If yes, how ? - This is because I don't want to explicitly configure the
> > settings for index level and what ever the replicas are for a primary shard
> > should automatically replicate the indexes/data that are part of the
> > primary shard.
> > 1. I'm wondering if there is any property like node.replica = true
> > and using the same node name in case of replicas will be the solution to
> > this.
> >
> > 2. We have index level replica settings for shards - Can we control
> > on which nodes the index replicas exists (this is in some sense related to
> > 1st point) ?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Phani.
>
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### Author:  [@Boaz\_Leskes](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Boaz_Leskes)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2013, 7:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741/4 "2013-09-26T07:21:32Z")
Hi Phani,
I'm not too familiar with SolrCloud, so it's hard for me to give a good
answer. I suggest you watch this talk
[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/videos/big-data-search-and-analytics/) which
explains the distribution model with some examples.
As to your ES question - yes you can have multiple shards on a node. And
yes - the file doesn't need to be exactly the same - I meant indeed the
index settings.
Cheers,
Boaz
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 7:01 PM, Phani Chaitanya Vempaty \<
[pvempaty.usc@gmail.com](mailto:pvempaty.usc@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> Hi Boaz,
>
> Thanks for the pointers. I'll try to put my question in a different way.
> May be I'm trying to draw analogies w.r.t SolrCloud which is why I'm
> getting these questions. So, I'll start with the following question.
>
> In SolrCloud when you say that you have 2 shards (each shard is a solr
> server) and start 4 servers then two among those will be the replicas of
> the 2 primary(leader) shards. May be it's wrong to compare with SolrCloud
> but just wondering the shards to ES node mapping. An ES node can have more
> than 1 shard ? (some of them can be primary shards & some can be replicas
> based on the balancing done by ES ?).
>
> And, I've a question on how the replicas of shards are decided. Lets say
> I've configured that number of shards as 4 and number of replicas as 1
> which I assume means that each shard will have 1 replica. Again in
> SolrCloud, after starting that many servers that you specify as the number
> of shards & the servers that you start later will automatically become
> replicas. How are replica shards decided in ES ?
>
> Also, for your 2nd point where you mentioned to make sure all nodes have
> the same yml. Is it for the index level settings in yml ? because we can
> change other parameters in yml which are node specific right ? like
> node.data & node.master as true/false and the like.
>
> Thanks,
> Phani.
>
> On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 3:18 AM, Boaz Leskes [b.leskes@gmail.com](mailto:b.leskes@gmail.com) wrote:
>
> > Hi Pahni,
> >
> > I'm not 100% sure of what your are trying to achieve - but here are some
> > tools that would probably help. The thing to realise is that replicas are
> > copies of index shards and automatically spread out through the cluster to
> > balance usage. There is no notion of a replica node but rather a replica
> > shard.
> >
> > That said, things you can do to control replica counts:
> >
> > 1. Use index templates to control the default number of replicas
> > (recommended) :
> > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-templates/)
> > 2. Use elasticsearch.yml to control the default number of replicas (you
> > have to make sure all nodes have the same yml)
> > 3. Use allocation filtering which nodes indices are allocated on:
> > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/index-modules/allocation/)
> >
> > Hope this helps,
> > Boaz
> >
> > On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 7:47:51 PM UTC+2, Phani Chaitanya wrote:
> >
> > > Again some newbie questions. I'm wondering how to configure a replica
> > > node at a global level rather than at index level. These are the questions
> > > that I have :
> > >
> > > 1. Can we configure that nodes 2 & 3 are replicas of node 1 in ES ?
> > > If yes, how ? - This is because I don't want to explicitly configure the
> > > settings for index level and what ever the replicas are for a primary shard
> > > should automatically replicate the indexes/data that are part of the
> > > primary shard.
> > > 1. I'm wondering if there is any property like node.replica =
> > > true and using the same node name in case of replicas will be the solution
> > > to this.
> > >
> > > 2. We have index level replica settings for shards - Can we control
> > > on which nodes the index replicas exists (this is in some sense related to
> > > 1st point) ?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Phani.
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the
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>
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### Author:  [@Phani](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Phani)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741/5 "2013-09-26T16:59:57Z")
Thanks Boaz for the answers and the link to useful information.
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 12:21 AM, Boaz Leskes [b.leskes@gmail.com](mailto:b.leskes@gmail.com) wrote:
> Hi Phani,
>
> I'm not too familiar with SolrCloud, so it's hard for me to give a good
> answer. I suggest you watch this talk
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/videos/big-data-search-and-analytics/) which
> explains the distribution model with some examples.
>
> As to your ES question - yes you can have multiple shards on a node. And
> yes - the file doesn't need to be exactly the same - I meant indeed the
> index settings.
>
> Cheers,
> Boaz
>
> On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 7:01 PM, Phani Chaitanya Vempaty \<
> [pvempaty.usc@gmail.com](mailto:pvempaty.usc@gmail.com)\> wrote:
>
> > Hi Boaz,
> >
> > Thanks for the pointers. I'll try to put my question in a different
> > way. May be I'm trying to draw analogies w.r.t SolrCloud which is why I'm
> > getting these questions. So, I'll start with the following question.
> >
> > In SolrCloud when you say that you have 2 shards (each shard is a solr
> > server) and start 4 servers then two among those will be the replicas of
> > the 2 primary(leader) shards. May be it's wrong to compare with SolrCloud
> > but just wondering the shards to ES node mapping. An ES node can have more
> > than 1 shard ? (some of them can be primary shards & some can be replicas
> > based on the balancing done by ES ?).
> >
> > And, I've a question on how the replicas of shards are decided. Lets say
> > I've configured that number of shards as 4 and number of replicas as 1
> > which I assume means that each shard will have 1 replica. Again in
> > SolrCloud, after starting that many servers that you specify as the number
> > of shards & the servers that you start later will automatically become
> > replicas. How are replica shards decided in ES ?
> >
> > Also, for your 2nd point where you mentioned to make sure all nodes have
> > the same yml. Is it for the index level settings in yml ? because we can
> > change other parameters in yml which are node specific right ? like
> > node.data & node.master as true/false and the like.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Phani.
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 3:18 AM, Boaz Leskes [b.leskes@gmail.com](mailto:b.leskes@gmail.com) wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Pahni,
> > >
> > > I'm not 100% sure of what your are trying to achieve - but here are some
> > > tools that would probably help. The thing to realise is that replicas are
> > > copies of index shards and automatically spread out through the cluster to
> > > balance usage. There is no notion of a replica node but rather a replica
> > > shard.
> > >
> > > That said, things you can do to control replica counts:
> > >
> > > 1. Use index templates to control the default number of replicas
> > > (recommended) :
> > > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/admin-indices-templates/)
> > > 2. Use elasticsearch.yml to control the default number of replicas (you
> > > have to make sure all nodes have the same yml)
> > > 3. Use allocation filtering which nodes indices are allocated on:
> > > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/index-modules/allocation/)
> > >
> > > Hope this helps,
> > > Boaz
> > >
> > > On Tuesday, September 24, 2013 7:47:51 PM UTC+2, Phani Chaitanya wrote:
> > >
> > > > Again some newbie questions. I'm wondering how to configure a replica
> > > > node at a global level rather than at index level. These are the questions
> > > > that I have :
> > > >
> > > > 1. Can we configure that nodes 2 & 3 are replicas of node 1 in ES ?
> > > > If yes, how ? - This is because I don't want to explicitly configure the
> > > > settings for index level and what ever the replicas are for a primary shard
> > > > should automatically replicate the indexes/data that are part of the
> > > > primary shard.
> > > > 1. I'm wondering if there is any property like node.replica =
> > > > true and using the same node name in case of replicas will be the solution
> > > > to this.
> > > >
> > > > 2. We have index level replica settings for shards - Can we control
> > > > on which nodes the index replicas exists (this is in some sense related to
> > > > 1st point) ?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Phani.
> > >
> > > --
> > > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the
> > > Google Groups "elasticsearch" group.
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> >
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/configuring-replica-nodes-at-a-global-level/13741/6 "2017-07-06T02:14:35Z")