Case study
Solr to Elasticsearch Migration on GKE
How SquareShift migrated a global professional services firm from Solr to Elasticsearch on a cloud-native GKE deployment using the ECK Operator.
A global professional services firm modernizing its enterprise search platform.
It migrated from Solr to Elasticsearch on a cloud-native deployment within Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Node — Elasticsearch cluster deployed on GKE (3 master, 3 hot, 3 cold). RBAC and field/document-level security from day one. Stack Monitoring, slow logs, and ILM tuning across the cluster.
Key servicesHow SquareShift delivered it.
The challenge
The client, a global professional services firm, needed to retire a legacy Solr search platform and move to Elasticsearch — without losing ground on security, performance, or reliability. The new environment also had to be cloud-native from the start, running on Google Kubernetes Engine rather than fixed infrastructure.
High-volume Solr data had to move across cleanly, and the team had to get production-grade security and observability right from day one rather than adding them after launch.
What we delivered
SquareShift stood up a 9-node Elasticsearch cluster (3 master, 3 hot, 3 cold) on GKE using ECK Operator v3.0.0, then wrote custom Python scripts to carry out the Solr-to-Elasticsearch data transfer.
The team designed a production security model around RBAC and field- and document-level security, added snapshot and restoration workflows to protect the migrated data, and layered in Stack Monitoring, slow-query logging, ILM tuning, and autoscaling recommendations.
The payoff
The client now runs its search platform on a cloud-native, 9-node Elasticsearch cluster on GKE, with RBAC-based security, full data protection, and stack-wide observability built in from launch. The Solr-to-Elasticsearch data transfer moved through custom scripts with no manual re-entry required.
Standing up a new ECK cluster is the easy part — the real work is designing RBAC and field-level security before the first index exists, not bolted on after go-live.
Cloud Modernization Practice Lead, SquareShift
Where this work sits