Skip to content

How to Use Federated Search

This document explains how to query your current cluster and how to perform federated searches across one or more different clusters in a supercluster setup.

Availability

This feature is available in Enterprise Edition. Not available in Open Source and Cloud.

How to query your current cluster in a supercluster

Query your current cluster when you know the data is in your cluster or when you need the fastest query performance.

What you need to know:

  • This is not federated search
  • You are querying the current cluster.
  • No cross-cluster communication occurs.
  • Results will include data from the current cluster only.


Steps: current-cluster-query

  1. Navigate to the Logs page.
  2. Enter your query in the SQL Query Editor.
  3. Select a time range.
  4. Select one specific cluster from the Region dropdown.
  5. Select Run query.

For detailed explanation, see Normal cluster query execution in the Federated Search Architecture page.

Result
Data from the selected cluster only. current-cluster-query-result

How to query one or more different clusters in a supercluster

Use federated search when you need data from multiple clusters.

What you need to know

  • Multiple clusters will process your query simultaneously.
  • Results will combine data from all selected clusters.

Steps
federated-search-multi-select

  1. Navigate to the Logs page.
  2. Enter your query in the SQL Query Editor.
  3. Select a time range.
  4. Leave the Region dropdown unselected, or select multiple clusters.
  5. Select Run query.

For detailed explanation, see Federated search for one different cluster and Federated search for multiple clusters in the Federated Search Architecture page.

Result
Combined data from all selected clusters. federated-search-result

Region selection reference

Use this quick reference to understand how region selection affects query execution:

Region/Cluster Selection Behavior Query Type Communication
None selected Queries all clusters Federated search Cross-cluster via gRPC
Your current cluster selected Queries only your current cluster Normal cluster query (NOT federated) Internal only, no cross-cluster
One different cluster selected (same region) Queries only that cluster Federated search Cross-cluster via gRPC
One different cluster selected (different region) Queries only that cluster Federated search Cross-cluster via gRPC
Multiple clusters selected Queries all selected clusters Federated search Cross-cluster via gRPC

Next step