Elastic Announces the General Availability of Elastic 8.0

Native support for natural language processing (NLP), now generally available, enables the use of custom or third-party PyTorch machine learning models directly in Elasticsearch. The addition of native NLP support with vector search enables users to perform inference within Elasticsearch, resulting in faster and more relevant search results.

In addition, customers can now leverage enhanced vector search capabilities, including the general availability of native support for approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search, to quickly and efficiently perform queries on enormous data sets such as documents, images, audio files, and more.

Elastic native vector search extends technology commonly associated with searching for image and text content into the world of business data. For example, organizations can use vector search with NLP support to deliver faster, more relevant customer support information, improve customer shopping experiences with unique product alternatives, and enhance search accessibility by providing unique audio and visual search results.

Additionally, expanded security features across the Elastic Search Platform include new default security settings to secure data, network, and user information in self-managed clusters. Auto-generated tokens and certificates, streamline and simplify security to help users save time and effort.

Enhancing Elastic Cloud on AWS with New Integrations and Simplified Onboarding Experience

A more simplified Elastic Cloud on AWS onboarding experience includes new integrations to speed data ingestion, including the new Elastic Serverless Forwarder. Designed as an AWS Lambda application and published in the AWS Serverless Application Repository, the Elastic Serverless Forwarder enables users to simplify their architectures and streamline data ingestion without the overhead of provisioning virtual machines or installing data shippers.

For more information read the Elastic blog about what’s new in Elastic 8.0.

Supporting Quotes:

• “Elastic provides us with tremendous speed and flexibility in developing our enterprise data discovery platform,” said Kathleen Brandt, CIO, CSX. “We were able to quickly bring multiple streams of data into one place, so we could see which data in what combinations would have the greatest value for our customers and employees, enabling them to make better-informed decisions.”
• “It’s easy to get lost in the technical jargon of areas like user-behavioral ML, dense vector fields, and nearest neighbor algorithms, but at the end of the day, whether they know it or not, organizations need to apply these types of technologies to their enterprise search deployments. And many of those same organizations don’t have the time or staff to build it themselves,” said Mike Leone, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Elastic is doing the heavy lifting for its customers and giving them the on-ramp they need to gain seamless value from machine learning applied to search.”
• "Elastic 8.0 is the result of thousands of person-years of development and expands on the innovation that customers have come to expect. With a focus on the speed, scale, and relevance that our customers need to build the applications that power their business, keep mission-critical applications and infrastructure performing, and protect digital ecosystems from cyber threats," said Steve Kearns, Vice President Product Management, Elastic. “Customers are choosing Elastic Cloud because it’s the fastest and easiest way to get started with our Enterprise Search, Observability, and Security solutions. New capabilities such as native vector search and natural language processing make it easier than ever to build compelling and interactive applications.”