Before starting with indexing and searching in ElasticSearch, we need to learn how to manage indices and perform operations on documents. In this chapter, we'll discuss different operations on indices such as Create, Delete, Update, Read, and Open/Close. These operations are very important because they allow us to better define the container (index) that will store your documents. The index Create/Delete actions are similar to the SQL's Create/Delete database commands.

After the indices management part, we'll learn how to manage mappings, which will complete the discussion that we started in the previous chapter, and to lay the foundation for the next chapter, which is mainly centered on Search.

A large portion of this chapter is dedicated to CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on records that are the core of records storage and management in ElasticSearch.

To improve indexing performance, it's also important to understand bulk operations and avoid their common pitfalls...