Running an Elasticsearch cluster across multiple data centers is generally discouraged due to challenges such as high latency, limited or unreliable connectivity, and data availability issues, which can degrade cluster performance and complicate operations. The architecture of Elasticsearch assumes nodes are located on a local network, making it less suited for geographically distributed data centers where network disruptions are more common. Alternative solutions include using replicated queuing systems for real-time availability across regions, employing snapshots for disaster recovery without hot replication, keeping datasets local to each data center while using cross-cluster search for unified querying, and leveraging cross-cluster replication for data redundancy and geo-proximity reads. These strategies aim to address the limitations of distributing an Elasticsearch cluster across multiple data centers while maintaining data integrity and performance.