Include Elasticsearch into GitLab delivery packages

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Problem to solve

There are existing GitLab features(Advanced Search) and proposed feature using Elasticsearch. However, Elasticsearch and its counterpart on AWS, OpenSearch, are not included in GitLab's delivery package. When self-managed customers use these features, they have to deploy the Elasticsearch/OpenSearch instance by themselves. It creates a adoption barrier for these features which prevent these users from benefiting the values of GitLab product to its maximum.

Proposal

There have been discussions to solve the problem, for example #21825 (closed). However, we were not able to tackle it up till today. Due to the unknown complexity of the project, we may consider some iterative approach. I am going to use this issue to capture ideas that we have discussed.

• Provide an installation script that we include in our integration documentation. Users can use it to download and install Elasticsearch on their setup.
• Include the installation script in our deployment package and prompt users to install Elasticsearch if they want to use the features.
• Fully package Elasticsearch in omnibus and K8S deliverable packages in form of installation file or container image.