How to Leverage Elasticsearch 6.3 Native SQL for Real‑Time Data Queries

1. Introduction

Elasticsearch 6.3.0 was officially released, featuring native support for SQL without any external libraries—ready to use out of the box.

REST, command‑line, and JDBC interfaces all allow SQL queries and aggregations, acting as a translator that understands both SQL and Elasticsearch, enabling readable, real‑time data processing while leveraging ES capabilities.

2. Example

(1) Insert test data

curl -X PUT "localhost:9200/library/book/_bulk?refresh" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '
{"index":{"_id": "Leviathan Wakes"}}
{"name": "Leviathan Wakes", "author": "James S.A. Corey", "release_date": "2011-06-02", "page_count": 561}
{"index":{"_id": "Hyperion"}}
{"name": "Hyperion", "author": "Dan Simmons", "release_date": "1989-05-26", "page_count": 482}
{"index":{"_id": "Dune"}}
{"name": "Dune", "author": "Frank Herbert", "release_date": "1965-06-01", "page_count": 604}
'

(2) Query all data with SQL

(3) order by and limit

(4) Combine SQL and ES filter

(5) Translate SQL to ES query

(6) Use SQL client

Login to the sql‑cli:

bin/elasticsearch-sql-cli

Execute SQL commands (illustrated below):

3. Summary

SQL is a language developers are very familiar with; native SQL support in the new ES version brings great convenience, and interested readers can try it out.

Installation documentation: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/install-elasticsearch.html

Elasticsearch SQL documentation: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/xpack-sql.html