Enterprise Search tools share several prerequisites, including an Elastic deployment. An Elastic deployment is a collection of Elastic services, including Elasticsearch, Kibana, and Enterprise Search server.

Get started with a free trial on Elastic Cloud. An Elastic Cloud deployment includes all the Elastic services you need, and you can manage them all in one place.

Alternatively, download artifacts to deploy Elastic services to production infrastructure or within local development environments.

The following sections describe the requirements for each Elastic deployment and how to manage deployments.

Elastic servicesedit

Each deployment is a collection of individual services. Ensure you have the services you need for the features you want to use. Enterprise Search features typically require Elasticsearch, Kibana, and Enterprise Search.

Elasticsearch and Kibanaedit

Every Elastic deployment requires an Elasticsearch service. Most Enterprise Search features provide a Kibana UI, and some require a running Kibana service. Unless you know you don’t need it, include Kibana in your deployment. Elastic Cloud deployments include Kibana automatically.

Enterprise Search serveredit

Most Enterprise search features require the Enterprise Search server. Unless you know you don’t need it, include Enterprise Search in your deployment. Elastic Cloud deployments include Enterprise Search automatically.

Infrastructure requirementsedit

Some Enterprise Search features require or suggest specific infrastructure settings, such as the amount of RAM for a particular Elastic service. Refer to the documented prerequisites for each feature.

When using a new feature with an existing deployment, you may need to verify the deployment’s settings. In most cases, you can also modify the settings if required.

For example, you can verify or change the RAM available to the Enterprise Search service on an Elastic Cloud deployment:

Creating and managing deploymentsedit

Elastic Cloudedit

An Elastic Cloud deployment helps you manage an Elasticsearch cluster and instances of other Elastic products, like Kibana, APM, or the Enterprise Search server, in one place. You can also configure preset hardware profiles to optimize deployments for your usage.

New Elastic Cloud deployments automatically provide all the services you need.

To create/manage Elastic Cloud deployments:

Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE)edit

You can deploy Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE) on public or private clouds, virtual machines, or your own premises.

New ECE deployments automatically provide Elasticsearch and Kibana services.

ECE streamlines the setup process for the most common Elastic Stack use cases by grouping them into solutions. Solutions are specialized templates pre-configured with sensible defaults and settings. To enable the Enterprise Search solution, see the ECE documentation.

ECE deployments are managed in the Cloud UI. The user who sets up your team’s ECE deployment receives the relevant URLs during the installation process.

Learn more about solutions and creating a deployment in the ECE documentation.

Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK)edit

Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) simplifies setup, upgrades, security, and more for running Elastic services in Kubernetes.

In ECK each Elastic service is managed separately.

See the ECK quickstart documentation to learn how to:

See Orchestrating Elastic Stack applications in the ECK documentation for more detailed instructions.

Elastic Docker imagesedit

The Elastic Docker registry provides official Docker images maintained by Elastic. Use these images to run Elastic services in a local development environment or to operate production deployments on your own infrastructure.

For most Enterprise Search use cases, you will need to run Elasticsearch, Kibana, and Enterprise Search services.

See Run using Docker images for details.

Elastic downloads (packages)edit

The Elastic downloads page provides official software packages maintained by Elastic. Use these packages to run Elastic services in a local development environment or to operate production deployments on your own infrastructure.

For most Enterprise Search use cases, you will need to run Elasticsearch, Kibana, and Enterprise Search services.

See Run using downloads (packages) for details.

Known issuesedit

The following known issues affect Enterprise Search deployments: