Hello from the Elastic DevRel team! In this newsletter, you’ll find information on upcoming Elastic meetups and events in your region, catch up on product updates and content, and stay up-to-date with everything Elastic-related.

In this edition, we cover AutoOps for detecting long-running search queries, better recall with an optimization in Better Binary Quantization (BBQ), and chatting with your PDFs using Kibana’s playground.

AutoOps, available on Elastic Cloud (currently only on AWS), simplifies cluster management by providing performance recommendations, cost insights, and real-time issue detection. It automatically attaches to deployments through the AutoOps agent, runs continuous analyses, and alerts you about potential issues like long-running search queries. In the example below it leverages the task management API to give you a clear history of recent events in the deployment view.

Getting better recall with optimized dense vectors:

Elasticsearch 8.18 will introduce enhancements to Better Binary Quantization (BBQ) — one of the index types of dense vectors. With the new optimized scalar quantization, it can deliver recall improvements of up to 20% and support quantization to any bit size. The update replaces earlier static methods with a state-of-the-art quantization algorithm.

Key Improvements:

• Locally optimized scalar quantization: Each vector now has individually optimized quantiles, allowing exceptional recall even at single-bit quantization.
• Asymmetric quantization: Achieves higher recall with the same memory usage.
• Dynamic quantile optimization: Improved accuracy by dynamically finding the best quantiles for each vector.

These advancements significantly enhance memory efficiency, reduce vector similarity errors, and unlock advanced quantization capabilities, setting a new standard for vector search in Elasticsearch.

Chatting with your PDF using Playground:

Elastic has a new functionality that allows you to upload PDF files directly into Kibana and analyze them using the playground. Playground is a low-code platform built into Kibana that enables you to create RAG applications and chat with your content.

Hybrid search: Gustavo Llermaly demonstrates when hybrid search is better than lexical or semantic search on their own.

Kibana maps: Join Michael Bischoff as he explains how to use external map data and ES|QL in Kibana maps.

E-commerce search: Han Xiang Choong showcases how to improve e-commerce search with query profiles in Elastic.

Filtering in ES|QL: Learn how to use the MATCH and QSTR functions for efficient full-text filtering in ES|QL with Carlos Delgado.

OpenTelemetry: Jessica Garson demystifies OpenTelemetry and explains how to add it to your Django application for We ❤️ Open Source.

Ingestion: Ingest syslog and auth logs from Journald into Elastic Stack using Elastic-Agent or Beats with Tiago Queiroz.

GCP Vertex AI Integration: Explore Elastic's GCP Vertex AI Integration and learn how it enhances LLM observability with Ishleen Kaur and Muthukumar Paramasivam.

Elastic Advent Calendar: If you missed it in December, we ran our annual advent calendar. Learn about 25 different topics in various languages — manage fleet, create query rules, observability and search with .NET Aspire...

Check out these videos:

• Create your own Spotify Wrapped in Kibana with Iulia Feroli.
• Learn how to implement Agentic RAG using Elasticsearch and Langchain with Han Xiang Choong.
• Explore circuit breaker exceptions with Stef Nestor.
• Jeff Vestal provides a walkthrough of Elastic’s Open Crawler.

Featured blogs from the community:

• Learn how to switch to LDAPS as authentication backend in Elasticsearch and solve certificate errors with Claudio Kuenzler.
• Jamie Maguire explains how to use the Elasticsearch vector store connector with semantic Kernel.
• Create a New York crime map using Elasticsearch ES|QL geospatial index with Tomasz Dzierżanowski.
• Read how PhonePe automated their Elasticsearch cluster upgrades for faster and less error-prone operations.

Americas:

Virtual meetup: Improving HPC Incident Response with Runtime Integrity in Elasticsearch — February 5 

Portland: PyCascades — February 8-9

San Francisco: RAG Chatbots & GenAI Infrastructure with Advanced Amazon Web Services (AWS) User Group — February 12 

Virtual Meetup: Elastic & Kafka no Brasil - February 13 

Palo Alto: TreeHacks — February 14-16

Meetup in Seattle: Do MORE with stateLESS Elasticsearch - Joint Meetup with AWS User Group — February 18

Meetup in Dallas: Monthly Elastic User Group — February 18

Meetup in Lancaster: Monthly Community Meetup — February 19

Meetup in New York: Scaling AI and Search: RAG Systems and the Future of Elasticsearch - February 19

Virtual meetup: Low Code RAG with Elastic — February 19

Meetup in Chicago: Elastic User Group Meetup — February 25

Europe, Middle East, and Africa:

Meetup in London: ElasticON Meetup with Microsoft — February 5

Amsterdam: DevWorld Netherlands — February 27-28

Asia-Pacific:

Virtual meetup: Elasticsearch & Testing Open AI applications — February 4

Singapore: Forge the Future - Craft Tomorrow with AI — February 28

ElasticON Tour:

Elastic's free, one-day conference series is coming to you. Join us to learn what's hot at Elastic right now, watch talks or demos, and visit the ask-me-anything booth. We have a community track for which you can submit your talks!
London: ElasticON — February 6

Singapore: ElasticON Singapore Meetup — March 3

Singapore: ElasticON — March 4

Sydney: ElasticON Sydney Meetup — March 5

Sydney: ElasticON — March 6

Join your local Elastic User Group chapter for the latest news on upcoming events! You can also find us on Meetup.com.

If you’re interested in presenting at a meetup, send an email to meetups@elastic.co