On Thu, Apr 2, 2015, at 04:23 PM, Shawn Heisey wrote: > On 4/2/2015 8:20 AM, Steven White wrote: > > I'm reading "Taking Solr 5.0 to Production" > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/solr/Taking+Solr+to+Production > > but I cannot find anything about Windows, is there some other link I'm > > missing? > > > > This section in the doc is an important part for a successful Solr > > deployment, but it is missing Windows instructions. Without one, there > > will either be scattered deployment or Windows folks (like me) will miss > > out on some key aspects that Solr expert know. > > We are aware that the documentation is missing step-by-step information > for Windows. We are all volunteers, and there's a limited amount of > free time available. The hole in the documentation will eventually get > filled, but it's not going to happen immediately. The available > solutions must be studied so the best option can be determined, and it > probably will require some development work to automate the install. > > You might get the sense that Windows is treated as a second class > citizen around here ... and I think you'd probably be right to feel that > way. There are no technical advantages in a Windows server over the > free operating systems like Linux. The biggest disadvantage is in > Microsoft's licensing model. A Windows Server OS has a hefty price tag, > and client operating systems like Windows 7 and 8 are intentionally > crippled by Microsoft so they run heavy-duty server programs poorly, in > order to sell more Server licenses. If a Solr install is not very busy, > Windows 7 or 8 would probably run it just fine, but a very busy install > will run into problems if it's on a client OS. Unfortunately I cannot > find any concrete information about the precise limitations in client > operating systems.
I think the point is more that the majority of developers use a Unix based system, and the majority of testing is done on Unix based systems. Also, there are ways in which the Windows memory model differs from a Unix one, meaning certain memory optimisations have not been possible under Windows. A Lucene index is accessed via a Directory object, and Solr/Lucene will, by default, choose one according to your architecture: Windows/Unix, 32/64 bit, etc. 64 bit Unix gives you the best options. My unconfirmed understanding is that this is to do with the MemoryMappedDirectory implementation which will only work on Unix. This implementation uses the OS disk cache directly, rather than reading files from the disk cache into the heap, and is therefore much more efficient. I’m sure there are some folks here who can clarify if I got my implementation names or other details wrong. So, Solr *will* run on Windows, whether desktop (for development) or server. However, it is much less tested, and you will find some things, such as new init scripts, and so on, that maybe have not yet been ported over to Windows. Upayavira
