What is Amazon OpenSearch Serverless?
Amazon OpenSearch Serverless is the serverless deployment option for Amazon OpenSearch Service, providing search, log analysis, and vector search without requiring you to configure, manage, or manually scale clusters. The service automatically provisions and scales underlying compute resources based on workload, using the same highly available, distributed storage as provisioned OpenSearch domains.
Billing is based on actual usage, measured in OpenSearch Compute Units (OCUs), plus stored data volume. This makes OpenSearch Serverless particularly attractive for workloads with infrequent, intermittent, or unpredictable access patterns, where manual capacity planning would be inefficient. Collections are always encrypted; encryption cannot be disabled, though you can choose the encryption key.
A key use case is as a vector database for AI applications. OpenSearch Serverless supports k-NN vector search, making it well suited as a backend for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and semantic search scenarios.
Core Features
- Auto scaling: Compute resources scale automatically as OCUs based on workload, with no manual sizing.
- Collection-based model: Logical grouping of indices into collections for simplified management.
- Vector search: k-NN-based vector search for AI applications and semantic search.
- Automatic lifecycle management: Shard and index management, plus service and version upgrades, happen automatically and non-disruptively.
- Security policies: Encryption, network, and data access policies at the collection level.
- OpenSearch Dashboards: Built-in visualization and dashboard creation without additional infrastructure.
Typical Use Cases
Serverless full-text search: Applications use OpenSearch Serverless as a search backend without worrying about cluster sizing or scaling. The service automatically scales up during traffic spikes.
Log analysis without capacity planning: Teams stream logs from applications and infrastructure to OpenSearch Serverless and analyze them with dashboards without having to plan cluster capacity in advance.
Vector database for AI applications: Developers use OpenSearch Serverless as a vector store for RAG-based AI applications where document embeddings are stored and similar content is found via vector search.
Benefits
- No cluster management: fully serverless operation, including automatic updates and upgrades.
- Automatic scaling eliminates over- and under-provisioning.
- Vector search capability for modern AI applications.
- Same OpenSearch API and dashboard experience as provisioned clusters.
- Built for production workloads, with redundancy against Availability Zone outages.
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with Amazon OpenSearch Serverless: from migrating existing search to serverless architecture and setting up vector databases for AI applications to optimizing OCU usage and costs.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon OpenSearch Serverless?
Amazon OpenSearch Serverless is an on-demand, auto-scaling deployment option for Amazon OpenSearch Service. Unlike provisioned OpenSearch domains, it handles capacity planning, scaling, and patching automatically and non-disruptively.
How does OpenSearch Serverless differ from managed clusters?
With Serverless, manual cluster management is eliminated entirely: sizing, shard and index management, and version upgrades happen automatically. Provisioned clusters offer more configuration options and control but require you to plan capacity yourself.
Does OpenSearch Serverless support vector search?
Yes, OpenSearch Serverless supports k-NN-based vector search and is well suited as a vector database for RAG applications (Retrieval Augmented Generation) and semantic search in AI applications.
How much does Amazon OpenSearch Serverless cost?
Billing is based on actual usage: you pay for the OpenSearch Compute Units (OCUs) consumed plus stored data. There are no upfront costs for cluster capacity. AWS publishes current rates on its official pricing page.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of AWS (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by AWS.