What is an index and type(index type) in Elastic Search?

Question

In the context of elastic search, am I right understanding that:

-> An index is equivalent to a database

-> An index_type is equivalent to a NoSQL collection or a SQL table

Answer 1

Yes you understand it right.

Index is something like database.

type is more like sql table than like NOSql collection. Because in NoSql you can mix fields types while in Elasticsearch you must keep field within same type.

In Es there is also some recommendation how you should store types inside of index

From document

Good: kitchen and lawn-care types inside the products index, because the two types are essentially the same schema.

Bad: products and logs types inside the data index, because the two types are mutually exclusive. Separate these into their own indices.