# General question about indexing **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [September 17, 2013, 10:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-about-indexing/13642 "2013-09-17T10:18:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![igor\_o](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@igor\_o](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/igor_o)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 10:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-about-indexing/13642/1 "2013-09-17T10:18:51Z")
Let's suppose that I have two tables in my project's DB (today it's SQL Server) - Documents and Tasks. It was decided to store every data inserted into the DB in ElasticSearch. I am beginning to learn ES and I'm wondering how many indices should I have - one for all data or one index for every DB entity (Documents index and Tasks index). Thank you in advance, Igor -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![javanna](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/javanna/32/4698_2.png) [@javanna](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/javanna)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 10:47am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-about-indexing/13642/2 "2013-09-17T10:47:18Z")
Hi Igor, the data design phase is really important. And it's mainly driven by how you are going to use your data. For instance, are you going to get documents by id? Or run full-text searches? Where are the fields that you want to search on, in the documents or in the tasks? And how do you want to get results back? Is there a relation between the two tables? Those are some of the questions that you'd need to ask yourself to decide how to structure your data. If you can add some details we'll try and help you with this. Cheers Luca On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 12:18:51 PM UTC+2, igo...@tomax.co.il wrote: > Let's suppose that I have two tables in my project's DB (today it's SQL > Server) - Documents and Tasks. It was decided to store every data inserted > into the DB in Elasticsearch. > > I am beginning to learn ES and I'm wondering how many indices should I > have - one for all data or one index for every DB entity (Documents index > and Tasks index). > > Thank you in advance, > Igor -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![igor\_o](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@igor\_o](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/igor_o)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 10:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-about-indexing/13642/3 "2013-09-17T10:53:08Z")
Hi Luca, Thank you very much for your answer. 1. Are you going to get documents by id? "no" (today, but who knows what we'll want tomorrow?) 2. Run full-text searches? Of course! 3. Where are the fields that you want to search on, in the documents or in the tasks? (In both) 4. How do you want to get results back? I'd prefer to get them as list of objects defined in our project. 5. Is there a relation between the two tables? Sure. Every task has one or more documents. Thank you in advance, Igor On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 1:47:18 PM UTC+3, Luca Cavanna wrote: > Hi Igor, > the data design phase is really important. And it's mainly driven by how > you are going to use your data. For instance, are you going to get > documents by id? Or run full-text searches? Where are the fields that you > want to search on, in the documents or in the tasks? And how do you want to > get results back? Is there a relation between the two tables? > > Those are some of the questions that you'd need to ask yourself to decide > how to structure your data. If you can add some details we'll try and help > you with this. > > Cheers > Luca > > On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 12:18:51 PM UTC+2, igo...@tomax.co.ilwrote: > > > Let's suppose that I have two tables in my project's DB (today it's SQL > > Server) - Documents and Tasks. It was decided to store every data inserted > > into the DB in Elasticsearch. > > > > I am beginning to learn ES and I'm wondering how many indices should I > > have - one for all data or one index for every DB entity (Documents index > > and Tasks index). > > > > Thank you in advance, > > Igor -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![javanna](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/javanna/32/4698_2.png) [@javanna](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/javanna)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-about-indexing/13642/4 "2013-09-19T16:51:40Z")
If the two tables have a relation between them, then you can try and represent it in elasticsearch or flatten your data. I would suggest you to have a look at this blogpost: [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/blog/managing-relations-inside-elasticsearch/) . It basically explains what options you have and the difference between them. The reason why I asked how you want to get the results back, was becasue if you for instance use nested documents, you can only retrieve the parent document and its children, while with parent child the documents can have a separate update lifecycle but you can't retrieve both parent and children in the same call. Also, do consider the "manual" option, flattening your data, which is usually the most performant one! Cheers Luca On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 12:53:08 PM UTC+2, igo...@tomax.co.il wrote: > Hi Luca, > > Thank you very much for your answer. > > 1. Are you going to get documents by id? "no" (today, but who knows what > we'll want tomorrow?) > 2. Run full-text searches? Of course! > 3. Where are the fields that you want to search on, in the documents or in > the tasks? (In both) > 4. How do you want to get results back? I'd prefer to get them as list of > objects defined in our project. > 5. Is there a relation between the two tables? Sure. Every task has one or > more documents. > > Thank you in advance, > Igor > > On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 1:47:18 PM UTC+3, Luca Cavanna wrote: > > > Hi Igor, > > the data design phase is really important. And it's mainly driven by how > > you are going to use your data. For instance, are you going to get > > documents by id? Or run full-text searches? Where are the fields that you > > want to search on, in the documents or in the tasks? And how do you want to > > get results back? Is there a relation between the two tables? > > > > Those are some of the questions that you'd need to ask yourself to decide > > how to structure your data. If you can add some details we'll try and help > > you with this. > > > > Cheers > > Luca > > > > On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 12:18:51 PM UTC+2, igo...@tomax.co.ilwrote: > > > > > Let's suppose that I have two tables in my project's DB (today it's SQL > > > Server) - Documents and Tasks. It was decided to store every data inserted > > > into the DB in Elasticsearch. > > > > > > I am beginning to learn ES and I'm wondering how many indices should I > > > have - one for all data or one index for every DB entity (Documents index > > > and Tasks index). > > > > > > Thank you in advance, > > > Igor -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elasticsearch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:elasticsearch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit [https://groups.google.com/groups/opt\_out](https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out). ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 2:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/general-question-about-indexing/13642/5 "2017-07-06T02:15:28Z")