[Koha-bugs] [Bug 33353] Add compatibility with Elasticsearch 8

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.koha-community.org]

https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=33353

--- Comment #14 from David Liddle <david.liddle at wycliff.de> ---
(In reply to Victor Grousset/tuxayo from comment #13)
> After having this in main/master there will be the question of backporting
> (now or later) to 22.11 which is the LTS. Because before the end of the LTS
> it's likely that ES 7 won't be supported anymore.
> 
> Here https://www.elastic.co/support/eol#elasticsearch
> we can see that branch 7.x will be supported until 9.x comes out.
> 
> There is no alpha version of 9.x for now, but when there will be, the stable
> release can be expected 6 months later. (learned this in ES forums) So
> people interested can keep an eye here:
> https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/tags
> for when the 1st 9.x alpha pops.
> 
> Also, for OpenSearch, it's already planned that 1.x will reach end of life
> before the end of 22.11's support.
> https://opensearch.org/releases.html => "Maintenance Window End" =>
> "December 31, 2023"
> 
> So what's the best strategy? (because it implies dropping 6.x support)
> 1. backport now
> 2. backport when/a bit before OpenSearch 1.x support ends (December 31, 2023)
> 3. backport when/a bit before ElasticSearch 7.x support will have also
> ended. (we don't know yet, it could be sooner than OS 1 or later)
> 4. don't backport and require ES 7 or OS 1 Koha admins to keep an end of
> life search engine or upgrade from the LTS.

This bug caught my attention last week, and I have been watching with interest
to see what responses there would be to Victor's question here. In the absence
of any (so far), I would like to offer the perspective of a system
administrator in the wild:

- The cataloger for our consortium of small libraries has been itching to
implement Elasticsearch for more than a year.
- In examining the request, I was disconcerted by a few facts about
Elasticsearch: 1. The version included by Koha appeared to be one that had
reached end-of-life with the publisher, 2. Even the supported version had been
associated with significant data breaches, and 3. There seemed to be a lack of
clarity following the change in licensing and the open source world's response
to it.
- Given the above, there was no scenario in this corner of the multiverse in
which I would have installed Elasticsearch on the internet-facing servers for
which I was responsible.
- HOWEVER, seeing OpenSearch on the horizon creates a new situation. Being
well-supported by AWS, it has a chance of being a viable and safe alternative.
- Our production server runs 22.05, BUT I can imagine a willingness to leap
forward a bit if OpenSearch is backported to 22.11.
- If that is indeed the future of more advanced indexing and searching, then it
seems logical (to me) to backport it to an LTS release, if you have the
resources to do so.

Perhaps the question needs the attention of a broader or more representative
forum, if you have one.

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