> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-ai-docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Create an Azure AI Search Service

> Learn how to create and configure an Azure AI Search service in the Azure portal.

# Create an Azure AI Search Service

Azure AI Search is an information retrieval platform for the enterprise. It supports traditional search and conversational, AI-driven search for "chat with your data" experiences.

The easiest way to create a search service is through the Azure portal, covered in this guide.

## Before You Start

Some properties are fixed for the lifetime of the search service. Decide on these before creating your service:

| Property         | Description                                            |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Name**         | Becomes part of the URL endpoint (must be unique)      |
| **Region**       | Determines data residency and feature availability     |
| **Tier**         | Determines infrastructure, service limits, and billing |
| **Compute type** | Standard VMs (recommended) or confidential VMs         |

## Prerequisites

* An Azure subscription ([start free trial](https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/free-trial/))
* Permissions to create resources in your subscription

<Info>
  Each Azure subscription can have one free Azure AI Search service, which is perfect for evaluation and learning.
</Info>

## Create Your Search Service

<Steps>
  <Step title="Sign in to Azure Portal">
    Navigate to the [Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com) and sign in with your Azure account
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create a Resource">
    Click **Create a resource** in the upper-left corner, then search for **Azure AI Search**
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose Subscription">
    Select the Azure subscription where you want to create the search service
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set Resource Group">
    Choose an existing resource group or create a new one:

    * Resource groups help organize related resources
    * They enable cost tracking and management
    * Make cleanup easier when testing
  </Step>

  <Step title="Name Your Service">
    Enter a unique service name:

    * Must be 2-60 characters
    * Use only lowercase letters, digits, and dashes
    * Cannot start or end with dashes
    * Cannot contain consecutive dashes
    * Becomes part of your endpoint: `https://your-service-name.search.windows.net`
  </Step>

  <Step title="Select Region">
    Choose the region where your service will be hosted. Consider:

    * Proximity to your users and data sources
    * Feature availability (some features require specific regions)
    * Capacity availability (some regions may be at capacity)
    * [Agentic retrieval](https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/search/search-region-support) region requirements
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose Pricing Tier">
    Select your pricing tier based on your needs. See [Pricing Tiers](#pricing-tiers) below for details.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Select Compute Type">
    * **Standard** (recommended): Standard Azure VMs with data encrypted at rest and in transit
    * **Confidential**: Hardware-based trusted execution environment (10% surcharge)
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review and Create">
    Review your configuration and click **Create** to deploy the service
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Pricing Tiers

Azure AI Search offers multiple pricing tiers:

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Free">
    **Free Tier**

    * One per subscription
    * Perfect for learning and evaluation
    * 50 MB storage limit
    * 3 indexes maximum
    * No SLA
    * May be deleted if inactive for extended periods

    <Info>
      Complete most quickstarts and tutorials on the Free tier.
    </Info>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Basic">
    **Basic Tier**

    * Entry-level production tier
    * 2 GB storage per partition
    * Up to 3 replicas
    * Suitable for small production workloads
    * SLA: 99.9% for read queries with 2+ replicas

    **Best for:**

    * Small websites or apps
    * Development and testing
    * Low query volumes
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Standard">
    **Standard Tiers (S1, S2, S3)**

    * Production-ready tiers
    * Scalable replicas and partitions
    * Higher storage and performance
    * Full feature support

    **S1:**

    * 25 GB per partition
    * Up to 12 replicas
    * Most common starting tier

    **S2:**

    * 100 GB per partition
    * Higher query throughput

    **S3:**

    * 200 GB per partition
    * Maximum performance
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Storage Optimized">
    **Storage Optimized (L1, L2)**

    * Optimized for large indexes
    * Lower cost per GB
    * Moderate query performance

    **Best for:**

    * Large document collections
    * Infrequent queries
    * Cost-sensitive scenarios
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

<Note>
  Services created after April 3, 2024 have larger partitions and higher vector quotas at every billable tier.
</Note>

## Naming Guidelines

### Valid Service Names

```
mysearchservice
company-search-prod
search2024
```

### Invalid Service Names

```
MySearchService    // uppercase not allowed
-search-           // cannot start/end with dash
search--service    // consecutive dashes not allowed
company.search     // dots not allowed
```

<Tip>
  Include the region in your service name (e.g., `myservice-westus`) to make multi-region management easier.
</Tip>

## Region Selection

### Checklist for Choosing a Region

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Feature Availability">
    Check if your target region supports:

    * Your desired pricing tier
    * AI enrichment capabilities
    * Integrated vectorization
    * Multimodal search
    * Agentic retrieval (preview)

    See [region availability by tier](https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/search/search-sku-tier#region-availability-by-tier)
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Data Residency">
    * Keep services in the same region to minimize latency
    * No bandwidth charges for same-region services
    * Consider compliance and data sovereignty requirements
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="AI Integration">
    For AI enrichment with Azure AI services:

    * Key-based connections require both services in the same region
    * Keyless connections (preview) allow different regions
    * Check Azure Vision availability for multimodal embeddings
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Business Continuity">
    For high availability:

    * Create services in multiple regions
    * Use 2+ replicas per service for availability zones
    * Example: East US and West US for North America coverage
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Configure Authentication

By default, new services use API key authentication. For better security, enable role-based access control (RBAC).

<Steps>
  <Step title="Navigate to Keys">
    In your search service, go to **Settings** > **Keys**
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose Authentication Method">
    Select one of:

    * **API Key**: Traditional key-based authentication
    * **Role-based access control**: Azure AD authentication (recommended)
    * **Both**: Allow both methods during migration
  </Step>

  <Step title="Assign Roles">
    For RBAC, assign these roles to users or applications:

    * **Search Service Contributor**: Manage service and indexes
    * **Search Index Data Contributor**: Add/update/delete documents
    * **Search Index Data Reader**: Query indexes (read-only)
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Warning>
  API keys provide full access to your service. Rotate keys regularly and consider switching to RBAC for production.
</Warning>

## Scale Your Service

After deployment, you can scale your service to meet demand.

### Replicas and Partitions

* **Replicas**: Copies of your index for high availability and query throughput
  * Minimum 2 for read-only SLA
  * Minimum 3 for read/write SLA
  * Distribute across availability zones automatically

* **Partitions**: Divide your index for storage and parallel processing
  * More storage capacity
  * Higher indexing throughput
  * Parallel query execution

### Scaling Example

```mermaid theme={null}
graph TD
    A[1 Replica, 1 Partition] -->|Add Replicas| B[3 Replicas, 1 Partition]
    B -->|High Availability|
    A -->|Add Partitions| C[1 Replica, 3 Partitions]
    C -->|More Storage|
```

<Steps>
  <Step title="Go to Scale Settings">
    Navigate to **Settings** > **Scale** in your search service
  </Step>

  <Step title="Adjust Replicas">
    Use the slider to increase or decrease replicas
  </Step>

  <Step title="Adjust Partitions">
    Use the slider to increase or decrease partitions
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review Cost">
    Check the estimated monthly cost before applying changes
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Info>
  Scaling is only available on billable tiers. Free tier services cannot be scaled.
</Info>

## Compute Type Selection

### Standard Compute (Default)

* Standard Azure VMs
* Data encrypted at rest and in transit
* Suitable for most workloads
* Base pricing

**Use when:**

* Building typical search applications
* Cost optimization is important
* Standard security is sufficient

### Confidential Compute

* Azure confidential computing VMs
* Hardware-based trusted execution environment
* Data protected in use (during processing)
* 10% surcharge
* Limited regional availability
* Some features restricted

**Use when:**

* Processing highly sensitive data
* Compliance requires data-in-use protection
* Regulatory requirements mandate confidential computing

<Warning>
  Confidential compute has limited regional availability and disables certain features. Review [data in use](https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/search/search-security-overview#data-in-use) documentation before selecting.
</Warning>

## Monitor Your Service

Once deployed, monitor service health and usage:

1. **Service Dashboard**: View overview metrics
2. **Metrics**: Query latency, throttling, index size
3. **Logs**: Diagnostic logs for troubleshooting
4. **Alerts**: Set up notifications for issues

## Cost Management

Optimize your search service costs:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Right-Size Resources" icon="chart-line">
    Start small and scale up based on actual usage metrics
  </Card>

  <Card title="Monitor Usage" icon="gauge">
    Use Azure Cost Management to track spending
  </Card>

  <Card title="Optimize Indexing" icon="clock">
    Schedule indexer runs during off-peak hours
  </Card>

  <Card title="Review Replicas" icon="copy">
    Scale down replicas when high availability isn't needed
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## When to Add a Second Service

Consider creating additional services for:

* **Multi-region deployment**: Reduce latency for global users
* **Disaster recovery**: Ensure service availability during regional outages
* **Environment isolation**: Separate dev, test, and production
* **Multi-tenant architectures**: Isolate customer data
* **Workload separation**: Different SLAs for different applications

<Note>
  You cannot separate indexing and querying workloads. Both operations run on the same service.
</Note>

## Request Additional Quota

Azure subscriptions have limits on the number of search services:

1. Navigate to **Quotas** service in Azure portal
2. Filter by **Search** services
3. Select your subscription and region
4. Click **Request adjustment**
5. Enter new limit (must exceed current)
6. Submit request

Most requests are approved within 24 hours. Large quota increases (30+ services) may take up to one month.

## Alternative Creation Methods

Besides the Azure portal, you can create services using:

### Azure PowerShell

```powershell theme={null}
New-AzSearchService -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
    -Name "mysearchservice" `
    -Location "West US" `
    -Sku "Standard"
```

### Azure CLI

```bash theme={null}
az search service create \
    --name mysearchservice \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --location westus \
    --sku Standard
```

### ARM Template

```json theme={null}
{
  "type": "Microsoft.Search/searchServices",
  "apiVersion": "2023-11-01",
  "name": "mysearchservice",
  "location": "westus",
  "sku": {
    "name": "standard"
  },
  "properties": {
    "replicaCount": 1,
    "partitionCount": 1
  }
}
```

### Bicep

```bicep theme={null}
resource searchService 'Microsoft.Search/searchServices@2023-11-01' = {
  name: 'mysearchservice'
  location: 'westus'
  sku: {
    name: 'standard'
  }
  properties: {
    replicaCount: 1
    partitionCount: 1
  }
}
```

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Create an Index" icon="list" href="/search/indexing/overview">
    Build your first search index
  </Card>

  <Card title="Import Data" icon="file-import" href="/search/indexing/indexers">
    Load data from Azure services
  </Card>

  <Card title="Security" icon="shield" href="https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/search/search-security-overview">
    Configure authentication and access control
  </Card>

  <Card title="Monitoring" icon="chart-bar" href="https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/search/monitor-azure-cognitive-search">
    Set up monitoring and alerts
  </Card>
</CardGroup>