Thread: SOLR Integration in ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT

Hello Guys,

1. Requirement / Search = SOLR
[/COLOR]There is a requirement for us (storefront developer) that to create Faceted Search / Faceted navigation in Storefront website. We already tried it with Database changes but it is not that much effective and time consuming and not reliable even, when we should have more products with different attribute or out-of-box filtering like rest of the website in E-eCommerce world. like zappos.com / CNET / ebay.de / Buy.com
And we figure out facted search / autocomplete search or any search in e-commerce site can be served using SOLR which is the best solution.

2. SOLR OUT-OF-BOX integration.
We have apache SOLR and documents (Data/product/Items) index in that and rougly able to get query answer for facted query using SOLR-Admin and URLS in XML / JSON Format ! So we have now bit clear knowledge about SOLR with its query, syntax, CommonQueryParams / SimpleFaced Params using Java / SOLR-Admin.

3. Integrate SOLR in .NET using SOLRNET API.
SOLR is written on Java platform, Apache SOLR is available with source code but we will use OUT-Of-BOX solr. To integrate SOLR in .NET there is one binaries available called SOLRNET which communicate with SOLR and provide us great tool to start with.
https://code.google.com/p/solrnet/

SampleApp is coded in MVC which for front-end we only have XMLPackages or we can write in direct showcategory.aspx using ASP.NET SERVER CONTROLS.

4. Query / Problem / Stuck in SOLRNET Integration with XMLPackages.
We understood sample app well which is MVC ! Views are very powerful where we have control of each HTML Piece, while here we have XMLPackage, we are not clear and stuck how we can integrate it with XMLPackage using SOLRNET.
I am trying to create it website filters like website
http://percys.com/
http://www.percys.com/c-33-televisions.aspx

So if someone has integrate SOLR in ASPDONETSTOREFRONT website please please please guide me or provide me sample files (XMLPackages / Code File (.cs). You can directly revert back to crazyvraj@gmail.com.

-Thanks,
CrazyVraj
Email : [crazyvraj@gmail.com]

Hi CrazyVraj!

We have continuously been working on a complete solution, built in .net where you don't need apache solr at all. Our solution can run under your current application pool or as a separate website.

We started this journey 7 years ago when we built a lucene search for AspDotNetStorefront for a hand full of our clients. Since then we have grown it far beyond that into an AspDotNetStorefront eCommerce search engine, with highly relevant search, facet navigation, rich autocomplete, spell correction, advanced sorting and more.

We worked very hard to take all the complexity out of what when and how to index, search, organize and return your data. It can run in a very low memory environment and still operate very quickly. Give it all the memory you can and our custom caching engine will use it.

In the end we feel we have something that is a much better compliment to asp.net and AspDotNetStorefront than Apache+Solr+Solr.net

If you would like us to set up a demo for you with your data we can do that in about an afternoon.

We've done some pretty cool thing with our search & navigation.

www.allshocks.com The drop downs and navigation is all powered by smart search. (thousands of products for 10's of thousands of vehicles)

www.discount-merchant.com This site has about 150,000 products and a thousand or so categories. It was fairly slow until we implemented smart search.

www.petsuppliesnow.com This site has about 30,000 products and is running on a dual core virtual server with 2 gigs of ram.

Please Search, Navigate, sort etc.. I would love to hear your feedback.

If you are interested we just set up a store a few months back to sell our solution. If interested I would like to offer a discount for those who tried to embark on the solr journey just to see what a mountain of work it is to get that solution up and running, as well as a way to say thank you to the AspDotNetStorefront community participants.

Discount code nosolr will get you 30% off.

MoCo eCommerce Smart Search for AspDotnetStorefront


Let me know what you think!

~John Morrison

Hi John Morrison,

Thanks for your reply and details. I have checked it, but we need to have filters based on product attribute which depends on the categorization. like zappos.com or buy.com. We might have more product ranges in future.

As of now, we are not looking to buy any solution rather than custom implementation is perferable for us so we can have full control over code and tweak as we required.

But thanks for you promo-code and imitative for demo setup. We will always keep in mind.

If someone from your company or tech team, has idea with SOLR integration and UI development (with XMLPackages or .aspx page), please guide us which way is better to do with custom development

Here, I stuck in query, How should I make UI by using SOLRNET ?? or how can I use it in XMLPackages.

-Thanks,
Crazyvraj.

Originally Posted by John Morrison

Hi CrazyVraj!

We have continuously been working on a complete solution, built in .net where you don't need apache solr at all. Our solution can run under your current application pool or as a separate website.

We started this journey 7 years ago when we built a lucene search for AspDotNetStorefront for a hand full of our clients. Since then we have grown it far beyond that into an AspDotNetStorefront eCommerce search engine, with highly relevant search, facet navigation, rich autocomplete, spell correction, advanced sorting and more.

We worked very hard to take all the complexity out of what when and how to index, search, organize and return your data. It can run in a very low memory environment and still operate very quickly. Give it all the memory you can and our custom caching engine will use it.

In the end we feel we have something that is a much better compliment to asp.net and AspDotNetStorefront than Apache+Solr+Solr.net

If you would like us to set up a demo for you with your data we can do that in about an afternoon.

We've done some pretty cool thing with our search & navigation.

www.allshocks.com The drop downs and navigation is all powered by smart search. (thousands of products for 10's of thousands of vehicles)

www.discount-merchant.com This site has about 150,000 products and a thousand or so categories. It was fairly slow until we implemented smart search.

www.petsuppliesnow.com This site has about 30,000 products and is running on a dual core virtual server with 2 gigs of ram.

Please Search, Navigate, sort etc.. I would love to hear your feedback.

If you are interested we just set up a store a few months back to sell our solution. If interested I would like to offer a discount for those who tried to embark on the solr journey just to see what a mountain of work it is to get that solution up and running, as well as a way to say thank you to the AspDotNetStorefront community participants.

Discount code nosolr will get you 30% off.

MoCo eCommerce Smart Search for AspDotnetStorefront


Let me know what you think!

~John Morrison

Hi Crazy Vraj!

Are you gong to attempt to modify and recompile solr or lucene, or do just need to be able to configure it? Our engine is much like solr with a lot less to worry about. In the end Smart Search it is very much configurable etc..

We do have experience and can give you recommendations on how to manage your implementation. Feel free to message me or just call 480-522-1062 I would be happy to take some time to help you out.

We use a handful of strategies, custom aspx pages, controls and xmlpackages to integrate. I just depends on what your goal is. You can solve everything via the xml packages however, depending on how many attributes you have, the xml package engine can just get slow. It is best to do data-shaping in c#. That being said you can write your nav as a custom control and use a custom master page to reference it.

I understand you want to work with a configurable solution. I think I did a poor job with my examples.

With smart search you can send it any kind of content you want, you can add as much as you want to your product data or you can send your own custom data like articles blogs topics etc. You can structure your data any way you want and ask it to send you back specific content such as only products or categories or articles etc. You can tell it to strip out html, or to only store the data as payload for your results as it doesn't need to be evaluated for indexing, normalization, or manipulation. You can manage what fields it evaluates for word stemming, autocomplete, and spell checking.

Smart search absolutely can provide faceted nav based on category.
http://smartsearch.mcdev.us/c-10-desktops.aspx


Sorry if half of this sounds like a plug, I just didn't want assumptions to go unaddressed in the forum. I would be happy to help you with your desired path.

~John

SOLR and it's relation Lucene are definitely *the* search platforms and are used for many large commercial sites.
Large and highly regarded CMS systems such as Sitecore (.NET based) also use Lucene as a core module for search

I would also be really interested to hear of anyone who's integrated SOLR with ASPDNSF. We are busy at the moment, but if time frees up in a couple of months, I might have a go at building a SOLR based module to see what can be achieve.

I'd probably work with the Java SOLR engine running either on the same server, or on a low-cost Unix server alongside ASPDNSF.

Within ASPDNSF, you'd probably need an indexer job schedule that periodically indexes products, categories, topics etc. or code that adds to the index each time content is updated. Then you'd need an Ajax-based search module combined with client controls to query the index and render results.

Adam
Webopius