Overview

Managed OpenSearch on Exoscale is a fully-managed, open-source search-and-analytics engine delivered as Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS). Built on the community-driven fork of Elasticsearch 7.10.2, it provides a familiar API, OpenSearch Dashboards, and enterprise-grade operational automation—so you can focus on ingesting, searching, and visualising data instead of running clusters.

Terminology

  • Service
    A managed OpenSearch deployment, isolated per customer.
  • Cluster
    One or more OpenSearch nodes backing a service.
  • Node
    A virtual machine that stores data and executes queries.
  • Index
    A logical collection of JSON documents.
  • Shard / Replica
    Primary or copy of a shard that distributes an index across nodes for scalability and resilience.
  • Plan
    Preset resources & redundancy level (hobbyist, startup, business, premium).
  • Dashboard
    The built-in OpenSearch Dashboards UI for visualisation and management.

Features

  • Managed lifecycle
    automated provisioning, rolling upgrades, in-place re-sizing, and health monitoring.
  • High availability options
    multi-node business / premium plans with adjustable number_of_replicas. Automatic safeguards ensure the replica count always fits the cluster size.
  • OpenSearch Dashboards
    one-click access for ad-hoc queries and visualisations.
  • Security by default
    TLS-encrypted endpoints, IP filtering, and service-level isolation.
  • Automated backups
    daily encrypted snapshots retained per-plan.
  • Horizontal & vertical scaling
    upgrade RAM/CPU or add nodes with zero-downtime operations via CLI/API.

Availability

OpenSearch services can be provisioned in every current Exoscale zone.

ZoneCountryCityAvailability
at-vie-1AustriaVienna
at-vie-2AustriaVienna
ch-gva-2SwitzerlandGeneva
ch-dk-2SwitzerlandZurich
de-fra-1GermanyFrankfurt
de-muc-1GermanyMunich
bg-sof-1BulgariaSofia
hr-zag-1CroatiaZagreb

Limitations

  • Portal Coverage
    advanced operations (custom settings, scaling, forks) are currently CLI/API-only; Portal offers basic provisioning and monitoring.
  • Cross-Service Integrations
    direct integration with other DBaaS engines (e.g. Kafka Connect) is not yet available.
  • Single-Node Plans
    hobbyist and startup tiers have no replicas—consider at least business for production.
  • Version Pinning
    only the major versions listed in the plan matrix can be selected; minor upgrades are managed automatically.

NOTE - OpenSearch vs Elasticsearch
OpenSearch is an open-source fork of the original Elasticsearch project. When Elastic NV adopted the Server Side Public License (SSPL) in 2021, the licence prevented Exoscale from offering Elasticsearch as a service. The community—including our DBaaS partner Aiven—responded by forking the last Apache-licensed versions (7.10.2) of Elasticsearch and Kibana, creating OpenSearch and OpenSearch Dashboards.