services	platforms	author
search	dotnet	brjohnst

Getting Started with Azure Search using .NET

This sample includes several projects that are meant to help when getting started with Azure Search and .NET. It leverages the Azure Search .NET SDK as well as many best practices.

The DotNetHowTo sample is a simple .NET Core console application that shows how to:

• Create and Delete an Azure Search index
• Upload Documents to an Azure Search index
• Search & Filter documents within an index

The DotNetETagsExplainer sample shows how to use ETags to update Azure Search resources safely in the presence of concurrency.

The DotNetHowToIndexers sample is a simple .NET Core console application that shows how to:

• Create and Delete an Azure Search index
• Create an Azure Search indexer for Azure SQL

The DotNetHowToMultipleDataSources sample demonstrates combining multiple Azure data sources into a single search index using indexers:

• Create and Delete an Azure Search index
• Create two Azure Search indexers, one for Azure SQL and one for Cosmos DB
• Target the same Azure Search index using both indexers

The DotNetHowToSynonyms sample demonstrates how to incorporate the Synonyms feature in your application step by step:

• Create an Azure Search index
• Search documents using terms that do not appear in the indexed documents
• Define and upload synonym rules
• Repeat the search

The DotNetHowToSecurityTrimming sample demonstrates how to implement document-level security in Azure Search using filters.

The DotNetSample project is a more detailed example that demonstrates:

• How to use the Azure Search Indexer to ingest data from common stores (such as Azure SQL) to populate an Azure Search index
• A simple ASP.net MVC application that allow you to search and view results from an Azure Search index

The DotNetHowToAutocomplete sample demonstrates several techniques for adding auto-complete and suggestions to your search experience. It demonstrates the following:

• Implement a search input box
• Add support for an auto-complete list that pulls from a remote source
• Retrieve suggestions and auto-complete using the .Net SDK and REST API
• Support client-side caching to improve performance

The DotNetHowToEncryptionUsingCMK sample demonstrates how to create a synonym-map and an index that are encrypted with customer-managed key in Azure Key Vault.

Running the DotNetHowTo sample

• Open the DotNetHowTo.sln project in Visual Studio
• Update the appsettings.json with the service and api details of your Azure Search service
• Compile and Run the project

Running the DotNetETagsExplainer sample

• Open the DotNetETagsExplainer.sln project in Visual Studio
• Update the appsettings.json with the service and api details of your Azure Search service
• Compile and Run the project

Running the DotNetHowToIndexers sample

• Open the DotNetHowToIndexers.csproj project in Visual Studio.
• Update the appsettings.json with your service name, api key, and connection string to your Azure SQL database.
• Run the data\hotels.sql script against your Azure SQL database.
• Compile and Run the project using Visual Studio 2017.
• Alternatively, download the .NET Core SDK at https://www.microsoft.com/net/core and issue a dotnet run command from the DotNetHowToIndexers directory.

Running the DotNetHowToMultipleDataSources sample

• Open the DotNetHowToMultipleDataSources.csproj project in Visual Studio.
• Update the appsettings.json with your service name, api key, and connection string to your Azure SQL database and Cosmos DB database
• Run the data\hotels.sql script against your Azure SQL database.
• Upload the json files in HotelsJson to a SQL collection called hotels in your Cosmos DB database
• Compile and Run the project using Visual Studio 2017.
• Alternatively, download the .NET Core SDK at https://www.microsoft.com/net/core and issue a dotnet run command from the DotNetHowToMultipleDataSources directory.

Running the DotNetHowToSynonyms sample

• Open the DotNetHowToSynonyms.sln project in Visual Studio
• Update the App.config with the service and api details of your Azure Search service
• Compile and Run the project

Running the DotNetHowToSecurityTrimming sample

See Security filters for trimming Azure Search results using Active Directory identities

Running the DotNetSample sample

• Open the AzureSearchDotNetSample.sln project in Visual Studio
• Update the Web.config in the SimpleSearchMVCApp project with the service and api details of your Azure Search service
• Update the App.config in the DataIndexer project with the service and api details of your Azure Search service
• Compile and Run the DataIndexer project to create an Azure Search and populate it with content from an Azure SQL database
• Compile and Run the SimpleSearchMVCApp project to search and view the results from this index

Running the DotNetHowToAutocomplete sample

This sample demonstrates how to create an index and a synonym-map, both encrypted using a customer-managed key in Azure Key Vault. To learn more, see Azure Search encryption using customer-managed keys in Azure Key Vault.

To run this sample, in addition to an Azure Search service, you need access to an Azure Key Vault account, and optionally also to an Azure Active Directory application. You need to obtain the key-identifier of some Azure Key Vault key, that has at least 'get', 'wrap' and 'unwrap' capabilities. An Azure Key Vault key identifier has the following format: 'https://.vault.azure.net/keys//'.

In order for your Azure Search service to be able to use your Azure Key Vault key, you must grant your search service certain Key Vault access permissions, specifically 'get', 'wrap' and 'unwrap'. If your Azure Search service has a managed service identity (see Create a service identity), you can grant these permissions from your key vault directly to your search service. If MSI is not enabled for your search service, and you don't wish to enable it, you must create (or use existing) Azure Active Directory (AAD) application, grant that application the required access permissions, and share the credentials of this AAD application with your Azure Search service. Learn more about this option here - Use an externally managed Azure Active Directory application.

After obtaining the required resources described about, follow this steps to run this sample:

• Open the DotNetHowToAutocomplete.sln project in Visual Studio
• Update the appsettings.json with your Azure Search service name and api-keys, and your Azure Key Vault key identifier
• If MSI is not to be used, update the appsettings.json with your AAD credentials
• Compile and Run the project

Running the DotNetHowToEncryptionUsingCMK sample

• Open the DotNetHowToEncryptionUsingCMK.sln project in Visual Studio
• Compile and Run the project

More information

For more details on the "how-to" sample, please refer to this article:

• How to use Azure Search from a .NET Application.

For more details on the "how-to" sample for synonyms, please refer to this article:

• Synonym C# tutorial for Azure Search.

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This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.