Skip to content

[Serverless] Add guidance for migrating from Elastic Cloud Hosted to Elastic Cloud Serverless #793

Open
@KOTungseth

Description

@KOTungseth

Description

Create guidance to help users migrate from Elastic Cloud Hosted to Elastic Cloud Serverless. This migration requires careful planning due to differences in architecture and operational models.

Scope of work

Migration guidance should include the following sections.

Understanding key differences

  • Comparison of Elastic Cloud Hosted vs. Elastic Cloud Serverless (features, API availability, infrastructure control, scaling, and billing model).
  • List of serverless limitations that may impact migration.

From @ppf2 :
There used to be a Limitations section in o11y and Security sections of the Serverless documentation but these have disappeared completely. Now we only have a differences section under the Elasticsearch project.

Suggestions:

  • Name these things consistently so that we don't have some sections calling them Limitations and other sections calling them Differences.
  • Move the "limitations" section into a main section that covers "comparing Hosted vs. Serverless" at the top level of the documentation so users can find them easily.
  • From a previous discussion in the Serverless steerco channel, Ajay and I agree that it will be a better experience to put the list of limitations into a table format similar to this sheet so that users can quickly tell which limitation applies to all 3 projects, and which limitations apply to individual or 1-2 project types only. I think we can take this further by tagging limitations that are on our roadmap (and cross reference our roadmap page on our website) so that users can tell if this is something that is coming in the future.

Assessing feature compatibility

Identify features in Cloud Hosted that require adjustments for Cloud Serverless (e.g., index templates, ingest pipelines, custom plugins).

Preparing data for migration

  • Reviewing data structure and index settings.
  • Ensuring snapshot-based migration compatibility.

Setting up an Elastic Cloud Serverless project

  • Steps to create a new serverless project in Elastic Cloud.
  • Configuring ingestion methods (Beats, Logstash, native APIs, etc.).

Migrating Data

  • Option 1: Snapshot Restore (Recommended)
  • Option 2: Reindexing via Reindex API or Data Streams
  • Option 3: New Data Ingestion

Updating applications and workflows

Adjusting API endpoints, authentication, and indexing strategies.

Testing and validation

  • Ensuring queries, dashboards, and alerts work as expected.
  • Running performance tests to validate results.

Decommissioning Cloud Hosted Deployment

Steps to turn off the old deployment once validation is complete.

Additional considerations

  • Include a feature comparison table between Cloud Hosted and Cloud Serverless.
  • Link to the Elastic Cloud Serverless roadmap for visibility into upcoming capabilities.
  • From @ppf2: I will suggest starting with consulting, SA and CA to see if they have done such a migration. Support can probably assist as well. For example, here's a knowledge article on migration agents to Serverless.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    ServerlessImprovements and changes to the Serverless Docsneeds-teamIssues pending triage by the Docs Team

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions