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It seems like a magical technology that can

Do spatial search do full text search

The problem is,

It doesn't say where does it store all the data. Does it have it's own proprietary database

If it store it's data in mysql, for example, I know that mysql cannot do spatial search well how can something build on top of it can?

Then someone said they use solr with mongodb. So solr can read mongodb and mysql? Who writes the glue? We?

Ultimately, what is this?

Database? Index database? API interface?

What is SOLR?

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I count 8 questions here. Please pick one and ask it. If you want a book on SOLR I am sure there are many available. – JNK♦ Jun 29 '12 at 12:00

closed as not a real question by JNK♦ Jun 29 '12 at 11:58

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Solr uses lucene to do the spatial and full text indexing, not mysql. It basically wraps a REST-style service on top of lucene's index library so you can access it as a service. The wikipedia article is pretty good for an overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Solr

An alternative to Solr that also uses lucene is Elastic Search, which I think is superior in at least a few ways--see this answer from the creator of Elastic Search: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2271600/elasticsearch-sphinx-lucene-solr-xapian-which-fits-for-which-usage/2288211#2288211

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I guess a better question will be what is lucene? Is that another database management system? dbms? – Jim Thio Jun 29 '12 at 5:53
Lucene is a library (Java) that allows you to create and search indexes of textual data, basically. It's not easy to use by itself (and it's not a service), which is why people have created wrappers around it. It has been ported to other languages, as well. – Wes Freeman Jun 29 '12 at 16:19
So lucene is like a database but only for indexes. SOLR is the wrapper around it. – Jim Thio Aug 3 '12 at 9:57

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