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I'm having issues with getting my Sitecore 8.2 sandbox to index properly. I've been using SOLR, but on a whim decided to switch over to Lucene to see if I could get the indexing to work. When I went to rebuild my indexes, I noticed about 32 different indexes, where I have only about 20 when using SOLR. I just did an upgrade from my Sitecore 8.1 environment, and I didn't see any instructions for adding new SOLR indexes to my already existing indexes. Do I need to add all of these new indexes for my SOLR indexing?

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To answer your question, there are no differences in indexes between SOLR and Lucene (with the exception of the swap cores for SOLR, see Bonus Answer). What you are seeing is probably a product of too many configs activated.

Let me explain.

In Sitecore 8.2, the following indexes are active OOTB using Lucene:

  • sitecore_core_index
  • sitecore_master_index
  • sitecore_web_index
  • sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master
  • sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web
  • sitecore_marketing_definitions_master
  • sitecore_marketing_definitions_web
  • sitecore_testing_index
  • sitecore_suggested_test_index
  • sitecore_fxm_master
  • sitecore_fxm_web
  • sitecore_list_index
  • social_messages_master
  • social_messages_web

In a vanilla instance, the various Lucene config files for these indexes will end with .config indicating that they are active. Their SOLR counterpart config would have a .example extension to the file.

When activating SOLR, there is a fairly onorous task of having to go through /App_Config/Include folder (as well as child folders) and look for Lucene files to .disable and SOLR config files to enable by removing the .example (or .disabled or whatever you might call it) extension.

However, not EVERY index is actually activated out of the box.

There are three files that are also left as Lucene (and SOLR) example files: enter image description here

These configs, when enabled, expose a bunch more indexes:

  • content_index_core
  • system_index_core
  • layouts_index_core
  • medialibrary_index_core
  • template_index_core
  • content_index
  • system_index
  • layouts_index
  • medialibrary_index
  • template_index
  • content_index_web
  • system_index_web
  • layouts_index_web
  • medialibrary_index_web
  • template_index_web

These indexes are not exactly required. And when the Sitecore.ContentSearch.<Lucene|Solr>.Indexes.Shared.<db>.config files are enabled, they add a bunch more indexes to the indexing screen.

I believe that this is what you are seeing.

SUMMARY

I would venture that the three configs above are enabled. You can probably safely disable them, if you don't want these extra indexes. However, yes, Sitecore is really going all in with indexing, so there are a lot more indexes in Sitecore 8.2. I expect this trend to continue as well.

BONUS ANSWER

When the SOLR Configs are enabled, and you also want to have the SwapOnRebuild functionality enabled, creating all of these SOLR cores can be a real chore. I've created a nice little cheat file for myself that can be used real easily with wget or curl.

http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_core_index&instanceDir=sitecore_core_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_master_index&instanceDir=sitecore_master_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_web_index&instanceDir=sitecore_web_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master&instanceDir=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web&instanceDir=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master&instanceDir=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web&instanceDir=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_testing_index&instanceDir=sitecore_testing_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_suggested_test_index&instanceDir=sitecore_suggested_test_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_fxm_master_index&instanceDir=sitecore_fxm_master_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_fxm_web_index&instanceDir=sitecore_fxm_web_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_list_index&instanceDir=sitecore_list_index&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=social_messages_master&instanceDir=social_messages_master&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=social_messages_web&instanceDir=social_messages_web&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_core_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_core_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_master_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_master_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_web_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_web_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_testing_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_testing_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_suggested_test_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_suggested_test_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_fxm_master_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_fxm_master_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_fxm_web_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_fxm_web_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_list_index_swap&instanceDir=sitecore_list_index_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=social_messages_master_swap&instanceDir=social_messages_master_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=social_messages_web_swap&instanceDir=social_messages_web_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=social_messages_master_swap&instanceDir=social_messages_master_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=social_messages_web_swap&instanceDir=social_messages_web_swap&configSet=sitecore_configs
http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/cores?action=CREATE&name=sitecore_analytics_index&instanceDir=sitecore_analytics_index&configSet=sitecore_analytic_configs

These default SOLR Url's can assist in creating SOLR cores for the OOTB Sitecore 8.2 Indexes as well as their associated "swap" core. Note that these url's are using SOLR ConfigSets for Sitecore. Create a configset folder called sitecore_configs in your SOLR folder and put your Sitecore modified schema.xml file in there. All cores created by these url's will then use the sitecore_configs configset.

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  • What are these 32 indexes called Keith? I haven't seen that many indexes before. There are usually only about 15. They are listed here for 8.2: doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/… Do you have any custom indexes? Oct 7, 2016 at 8:29
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    +1 for a very thorough response, Pete; great work! There is a Dan Solvay automated Solr provisioning for Sitecore that is hands off in terms of manually creating Solr cores -- I haven't tried it out, but I think that's the promise of it. I think it's part of a recent SIM check-in on GitHub.
    – G Killian
    Oct 7, 2016 at 12:27
  • Hi Pete! I noticed that in your bonus answer, you gave a different configSet for the analytics config than for all of your other configSets. Was that intentional, or was that just a typo? Oct 31, 2016 at 22:26
  • good question. I need to revisit why I did that. =) It might have been something that I was testing to see what the differences between those indexes are when I first went down that path. I'll let you know. I think you can use the same schema.xml though. (Sitecore and Solr version differences are jumbling together. Sorry!)
    – Pete Navarra
    Oct 31, 2016 at 22:30

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