Title: An ElasticSearch Cluster Named George Armstrong Custer

Description:

This is the epic tale of an elasticsearch cluster named "Custer", named after the US Calvary Commander.

It didn't start out with a name, it started out as our logstash cluster, but after experiencing how easy it was to search and find logs using logstash, our developers took it upon themselves to see what else it could be used for. This was our Battle of Little Big Horn.

In this ignite talk, attendees will laugh and learn as I explain:
• the origin of our cluster
• how it got it's name
• Where things went wrong
• Steps we took (good and bad) to deal with daily crashes (a.k.a. Little Big Horn)
• Lessons learned on using and scaling elasticsearch

Attendees will leave this short, 5 minute talk with the ability to identify the signs and symptoms of an over-utilized cluster. Specific thresholds that proved invaluable to us, such as JVM heap usage, memory utilization, shard movement, and index latency will be shared. They will also learn the tips and tactics on how to recover once a problem cluster is identified.