Azure Search allows you to create a service making your own data searchable, in much the same way that public search engines like Google and Bing make data on the Internet searchable.

There are three steps to configuring Azure Search:

  1. Create Azure Search Service
  2. Create Index
  3. Import data

In a previous article, I showed how to create an Azure Search Service.

This article will show how to import data into Azure Search service; then index that data.

Navigate to the Azure portal and log in.

For this demo, I am indexing a Table in Azure storage containing information about my public speaking events, as shown in the Azure Data Explorer in Fig. 1.

as01-TableData
Fig. 1

Open your Azure Search Service, as shown in Fig. 2.

as02-OverviewBlade
Fig. 2

Click the [Import data] button (Fig. 3) to display the "Import data" blade, as shown in in Fig. 4.

as03-ImportDataButton
Fig. 3

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Fig. 4

At the "Data Source" dropdown, select "Azure Table Storage", as shown in in Fig. 5.

as05-DataSourceTableStorage
Fig. 5

The "Connect your data" tab displays, as shown in Fig. 6.

as06-ConnectYourData
Fig. 6

At the "Name" field, enter a name for this data source.

At the "Connection string" field, click "Choose an existing connection" and select the storage account containing your data, as shown in Fig. 7.

as07-ChooseConnection
Fig. 7

At the "Table name" field, enter the name of the table containing your data.

Click the [Next] buttons at the bottom of the tab until you advance to the "Customize target index" tab, as shown in Fig. 8.

as08-CustomizeTargetIndex
Fig. 8

This tab displays all the fields in your data. Here you can select which fields can be retrieved, which can be filtered on, which can be sorted on, etc.

After making all your selections, click the [Next: Create an indexer] button at the bottom of the tab to advance to the "Create an indexer" tab, as shown in Fig. 9.

as09-CreateIndexer
Fig. 9

On this tab, you can configure how often your index will be updated from data changes. You can also decide whether to remove deleted items from your index (which will slow down indexing).

Click the [Submit] button to begin the first indexing and set the indexing schedule as configured.

A few minutes after the indexer runs, you should see the DOCUMENT COUNT and STORAGE SIZE values in the "Indexes" tab of the Search Service's "Overview" blade, as shown in Fig. 10.

as10-IndexesTab
Fig. 10

In this article, I showed how to import data into an Azure Search Service; then index that data.

In a future article, I will show how to call the search service.