Using Elastic Search With ASP.NET MVC

In this article, we are going to learn how to use elastic search with ASP.NET MVC in step by step way.

Link to download Solution.

We are already in the fifth part of this article. Till now, we have covered a lot in elastic search starting from how to configure elastic search to how to insert data into elastic search, further using Kibana for visualizing data, and at last, we have learned about Logstash and how to insert a bulk of data from MSSQL and MYSQL into elastic search. Now, it’s time to learn how we can query elastic search documents from ASP.NET MVC because at last, we need to show data to end-users in a fast way as possible.

What we are going to search

In this demo, we are going to create a search on “humanresource” index which we have inserted in your last article.

• How to insert a bulk document into elastic using Logstash

If you are a beginner and you do not have an idea what is elastic search but you want to know it, then the below links will help you to kick start with elastic search.

Links to Kickstart Learning Elastic Search

• How to Configure Elasticsearch On Windows
• Reading and Writing Documents with Single Document APIs In Elastic Search
• How to Configure Kibana

Prerequisites

1. Running Elastic Search instance
2. Visual Studio 2015
3. NuGet packages

Create ASP.NET MVC Application

Let’s create a simple ASP.NET MVC application with the name “WebElasticSearch”.

After entering the name, it will show another window for project selection. There, just choose “MVC” Template and change Authentication to “No Authentication” and click OK to create the project.

Project Structure

Next, we are going to install NuGet packages.

Installing NuGet Packages

We are going to install 2 NuGet packages.

1. Net
2. Nest

After installing the NuGet package, next, we are going to add a new connection folder.

Creating Connector folder and adding ConnectionToEs class

After creating the folder, next, we are going to add ConnectionToEs class.

In this class, we are going to create a connection to elastic search instance. As you can see in the below code, we have provided elastic search URI http://localhost:9200/".

Code Snippet

After creating the connection class, next, we are going to add a Controller and create View for search.

Add Controller “AllSearch”

Adding a controller with name “AllSearch”.

After adding the Controller, next, we are going to add an action method and in the constructor, we are going to instantiate the connection object.

Adding Action Method

In this part, we are going to add Action method “Search” and create an instance of the ConnectionToEs class.

Code Snippet

After adding “Search” Action Method, we are going to add a View for that action method.

Designing View

In this part, we are going to design the View with 2 textboxes.

1. jobtitle
2. nationalidnumber

Below is document of “humanresource” index in which, first we are going to create a search on both these parameters.

After designing the search View, next, we are going to add a class “humanresource” and properties similar to “humanresource” index and type “doc”.

Adding Class similar to “Humanresource” Index and type “Doc”

After adding humanresource class next we are going to add “DataSearch” Action Method which will take both this parameter as input and provide response in json.

Adding DataSearch Action Method

The request to elastic search we are going to send using “Nest” Client.

In this action Method the first thing we have done is to connect to elastic search using connectionEs class, then we have provided index “humanresources” and type “doc”, next we can provide size of document as output I have provided as 50, at last comes query in this we are using “match” query for that we are passing field jobtitle and in query we are going to pass value which we have searched.

Code Snippet