Overview of SearchStax - Solr-as-a-Service : Multi-site Apache Solr powered Drupal e-commerce

1. CUSTOMER WEBINAR: BUILDING & MANAGING
A MILLION RECORD CATALOG
Multi-Site, Apache Solr Powered Drupal E-Commerce
Solution
+

2. Pete Samland – Senior Manager Product Systems & Development Operations,
Bio-Techne
Spends the majority of his time running the information team at Bio-Techne. The
team is responsible for moving all of the product and financial data around the
globe. The team manages all of the cloud infrastructure and application
monitoring. Outside of work he enjoys heading to the mountains with his family
and skiing in the winter and camping in the summer.
Dustin Poage - System Developer, Bio-Techne
Employs a strong passion for connecting systems and people with the proper
technology. He has spent the last 4 years connecting Drupal with custom .Net
applications (is that even possible?!?) that maintain Drupal database records for
eCommerce, search utilizing Apache Solr, and has containerized it all. Outside of
work he enjoys taking his family outdoors off-roading, fishing and camping in the
Rockies.
Meet our speakers

3. Where we started.
One Entity:
● Novus Biologicals
● OEM sales model
● Large product catalog for the company
size (350k SKUs)
● 60 employees, 20M annual revenue, 3
global locations
- One Website
- Limited but known product lines
- Limited resources (still the case)
- Controlled growth
One application to rule them all
(the monolith)

4. Where we landed.
Bio-Techne:
● 5 brands
● ~1000 employees
● ~15 locations globally
● ~600K SKUs
● ~350M annual revenue
We have a significantly larger
company that acquired us for
our product catalog and IT skills.

5. Where we also landed...
1. No clear digital path when
we were acquired
2. About 10 employees in all of
IT

6. We have the technology, the team and the vision….
PLUS: A really cool monolith
that does what it does for
one brand and set of
products really well.
MORE

7. How are we really going to survive?
Current Solr Landscape
• Curl-ing flat files
• Custom Product Information Management application
• Static product pages
• Complicated proxy architecture
• Single Instance for Dev, Stage and Prod (Doin’ it Live!)
The Plan
• Build product pages from Solr
• CI deployments and actual testing
• Consolidate schema’s
• Atomic updates
➔ Message based architecture

8. Partnered with SearchStax because of their:
• Robust platform
• A Flexible, Scalable, and Reliable PaaS
• SLA
• Cost effective
• Ease of access, manageability, logistics and monitoring with notifications
Need a Solr Platform for a Growing Team

9. Architecture Map

10. Architecture Map

11. Architecture Map

12. 12

Jenkins
● Script Jenkins to create replica base images of the production and staging sites including
databases and code branches
● These are then run internally set to collections with Schema changes
● Once QA and UAT pass, these changes are shipped to Solr and collections reloaded.
CI/CD Process

13. 13

Visual Studio Online – Currently under development
● Visual Studio Online – Currently under development
● Message based publishing and subscribing
● On premise databases publish out changes to products to an Azure queue
● Application running within an Azure Kubernetes Service subscribes to the Azure queue
and then maps an updates the document in the appropriate collection
● Allows the integration of product information updates in real time to Solr
CI/CD Process

14. 14

Development and Staging Sites
● Gives the end user (Marketing) the ability to select fields and apply boosts to test
changes with the site search
● Allows segregation of development between web and search ensuring that changes
can or cannot proceed
● Each site has a set of copyField’s that are specific to how they would like to be searched
CI/CD Process

15. Schema Consolidation
Initially started with one Solr Schema for NovusBio
After acquisition additional custom Solr Schemas were created:
• Difficult to manage
• Who uses which fields?
• What do these each mean?
• More confusing for end users to test and change boost’s!
• Confusion between brands and what fields mean what for developers!
Our new plan is to Merge all Solr Schema’s
• Field Types – created specific field types for each entity to use for search
• Fields – created specific fields for each entity to search with, agreed upon
all entity in regards to what standard fields meant
• Result of this consolidation is yielding more flexible search fields and a
standardization for onboarding!

16. Schema Consolidation
Initially started with one Solr Schema for NovusBio
After acquisition additional custom Solr Schemas were created:
• Difficult to manage
• Who uses which fields?
• What do these each mean?
• More confusing for end users to test and change boost’s!
• Confusion between brands and what fields mean what for developers!
Our new plan is to Merge all Solr Schema’s
• Field Types – created specific field types for each entity to use for search
• Fields – created specific fields for each entity to search with, agreed upon
all entity in regards to what standard fields meant
• Result of this consolidation is yielding more flexible search fields and a
standardization for onboarding!

17. Schema Consolidation
Front End for each Brand:
• Highly customizable and templated
• Standardized data points
• Highly data driven with less confusion for development
• Creates collaboration for brand marketing
• Enables the end user to be confident
Back End:
• Standardized data points
• Flexibility to share field types and fields between brands
• Single point of reference for all sites
• Live updates to Solr from individual source systems

18. Monitoring and Performance
● New Relic is used to monitor the full web ecosystem

19. Monitoring and Performance
● Leverage the Solr plugin to get the data into New Relic and consolidate
monitoring

20. Where we are now.
● 12 Brands currently
● 1900+ employees
● 22 locations globally
● 1.5M distinct SKUs
● Around 700M in annual
revenue
● 60+ employees in the IT
department
There is a clear path forward.

21. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
Submit your questions and
answers to:
Bing Gin
bing@searchstax.com