Multi-Index Operations and Aliases ElasticSearch is not a traditional database, searches can be executed acorss indices with no known performance implications Entire cluster search: curl 'localhost:9200/_search?q=id:1' Multiple indices search: curl 'localhost:9200/index1,index2/_search?q=id:1' Wildcard search: curl 'localhost:9200/index*/_search?q=id:*' Index alias - create an alias for index or for group of indexes: curl -XPOST 'http://localhost:9200/_aliases' -H 'content-type: application/json' -d ' { "actions" : [ { "add" : { "index" : "test1", "alias" : "alias1" } }, { "add" : { "index" : "test2", "alias" : "alias1" } } ] }' Why bother creating aliases? Logical data partitioning, archiving by index, access control...