# Generall questions

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 15, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636 "2017-01-15T07:51:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jt3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@jt3000](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jt3000)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636/1 "2017-01-15T07:51:36Z")

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Hello!

I'm newbie in elastic search.

1. 

What hardware requirement do you need to use in order to use elastic search?

1. 

Is Elastic search is the same tool as Google Analycs?

If yes, is it possible to retrieve and customize information to the report instead of having the same standard report as Google analytics has?

Thank you!

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 8:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636/2 "2017-01-15T08:09:18Z")

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1/ it depends  
I can run it locally on my laptop. But you scale out to hundreds of nodes if needed.  
Prefer strong machines (memory is important), use ssd.

2/ not really. It's a more generic tool which can do something similar but you have to write the collector of the data.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jt3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@jt3000](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jt3000)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 10:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636/3 "2017-01-15T10:06:45Z")

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Thank you for your help!

`You have to write the collector of the data.`

You mean to write some kind of SQL query to retrieve customized data from the Elastic?

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**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636/4 "2017-01-15T10:42:50Z")

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> You mean to write some kind of SQL query to retrieve customized data from the Elastic?

David means that Elasticsearch is a database with analytics capabilities. It does not collect data by itself. You need to make sure to push data you want to analyze into Elasticsearch.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2017, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/generall-questions/71636/5 "2017-02-12T10:42:59Z")

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