🇬🇧 Designing a Federated Enterprise Search Platform for 150+ Websites
Explore Drupal Search API, portable indexing contracts, Lucidworks Fusion, Apache Solr, and configurable federation for a large multisite ecosystem.
Captivating Introduction:
A consistent search experience across independently managed websites starts with content ownership and metadata. This session follows the architectural decisions behind a platform designed for an ecosystem of 150+ Drupal websites. The initial production rollout covered a handful of sites.
Prerequisite:
Familiarity with Drupal and web application architecture. Basic search or indexing knowledge is useful; Lucidworks Fusion experience is not required.
Outline:
- Define content ownership, multilingual metadata, and federation requirements.
- Use Drupal Search API as the canonical indexing layer.
- Export normalized JSON through a portable integration contract.
- Compare shared collections and pipelines with per-site alternatives.
- Configure federation, facets, and search behavior in Drupal.
- Review query authentication, rendering, relevance, and future retrieval options.
Learning Objectives:
- Separate CMS content governance from search execution.
- Explain the tradeoffs of shared collections and metadata-driven federation.
- Design portable indexing contracts and configurable search experiences.
- Distinguish implemented capabilities from future AEM and AI retrieval directions.
Audience:
Drupal technical leads, solutions architects, backend developers, and search engineers working with multisite platforms.
Related Resources:
Presentation:
Slides are in preparation. Follow presentation progress on GitHub.
