As Elasticsearch users are pushing the limits of how much data they can store on an Elasticsearch node, they sometimes run out of heap memory before running out of disk space. This is a frustrating problem for these users, as fitting as much data per node as possible is often important to reduce costs. But why does Elasticsearch need heap memory to store data? Why doesn't it only need disk space?

Let’s be honest. No one wakes up in the morning thinking of reasons to contact customer support. It’s tedious, onerous, and can eat into your evening Netflix time. Thankfully, most brands realize that customer experiences drive brand loyalty and repeat purchases.

A classic problem that every backend developer has faced during their work is testing an application that uses a database. A perfectly valid solution is to use the real database for testing your application, but you would be doing an integration test, while you want a unit test. There are many ways to solve this problem. You could create the database with docker, or use an in-memory compatible one, but if you are writing unit tests that can be easily parallelized this will become quite uncomfortable.

If your organization is like virtually every other in the world (including ours!), you use a mix of Microsoft products in your productivity stack, possibly including SharePoint, Office 365 and OneDrive. But you probably also rely on a variety of other applications, maybe even mingling in “competing” tools like G Suite or Dropbox, in addition to complementary tools like Zendesk or GitHub.

Open source software development can have a reputation for abrasive behavior. The search community is a clear counterexample for me, with a culture that emphasizes respect and acceptance. This culture played an important part in my own path to open source development. A little over six years ago, I was a wide-eyed software engineer settling into my first full-time job.