Out with the old – and in with the new Lucene query parser?

Over the years we've dealt with quite a few migration projects where the query syntax of the client's existing search engine must be preserved. This might be because other systems (or users) depend on it, or a large number of stored expressions exist and it is difficult or uneconomic to translate them all by hand. Our usual approach is to write a query parser, which understands the current syntax but creates a Continue reading

Can you make a contribution to Apache Solr core development?

As any regular reader of this blog will be aware, we use almost exclusively open source software on customer projects. To meet their requirements, we often have to extend the functionality of the software (e.g. XJOIN in Solr). As far as possible, with the agreement of the customer, we like to then contribute these changes b...Continue reading

Apache Kafka London Meetup – Real time search and insights

The rise of Apache Kafka as a streaming data solution is something we've been watching for a while - as part of a collection of Big Data tools, it provides a 'TiVo for data' feature. We've begun to use it in client projects covering both search and log analysis...Continue reading

Flax wins contract with NHS Wales to support Apache Solr for Welsh Clinical Portal

We're very pleased to announce that Flax has won a 3-year contract with the NHS Wales Informatics Service to support the Apache Lucene/Solr search engine used by the Welsh Clinical Portal, during which period we'll be backing up the in-house team with our deep experience of Solr. The Welsh Clinical Portal is a classic example of how a search engine ...Continue reading

Flax announces partnership with Apache Kafka creators Confluent

We're very happy to announce our partnership with Confluent, which was founded by the creators of Apache Kafka, a stream data platform and the central component of their Confluent Platform. Flax has been aware of Kafka since its inception at LinkedIn, where it is used as the messaging backb...Continue reading