4 years ago, back in 2014, I wrote a blog post about the best way to integrate Solr with as400.
Today, I wanted to publish an update as the “world has changed” (E.g. Solr went from 4.9 to 7.2) and we’ve integrated Solr with more systems…
This doesn’t mean that the concepts discussed are no longer valid today. I’d still encourage people to read that ‘old’ blog post as it might still be the best solution in some cases. Also, people that followed the ‘old’ way of working, can re-use what they have built and still proceed in the new direction: also for search-solutions, it was kind of a “natural” grown process.
The main change is that Search-solutions has shifted away from the Solr data-import-handler. Some of the reasons are:
- managing a solr instance often requires flexible ways to manage the Solr configuration, which is now more and more facilitated by API’s
- solr instances are often deployed in containers, where it is more natural to have a less tight coupling between the components
- solr data import handler restricts the flexibility in routing your updates in SolrCloud
But, probably the most important motivation to shift into the new direction, is that we’ve found the Swiss knife for all integrations. During the last 4 years, we gradually became fan of the free, open source and extremely flexible tool that can handle all our integration needs and really fits well in our biotope: Apache Camel
search-solutions strongly believes that, within 10 years, Apache Camel will still be our favourite integration tool. When you are not satisfied with your current tools for integration and you have the freedom of choice, go for Apache Camel!
For sure, it’s not the tool that automatically does what you think… There is no such thing as a free ride… You’ll need to get familiar with it. But you’ll acquire the skills to integrate everything that is worthwhile to integrate! One further piece of advice for the ones thinking to adopt: get the book ‘Camel In Action’. It will help you a lot!
This being said, there is still a lot to be talked about: how to use Apache Camel as a tool for the integration of Solr with AS400 databases, data queues and RPG or CL programs. My plan is to post more about this in later blogs… so stay tuned and show me your interest in this topic via the comments section below or via our contact form.