Vespa Newsletter, September 2022

In the September 2022 update of the Vespa Newsletter, several key enhancements were highlighted, including the introduction of rank-phase statistics, schema feeding flexibility, and new beta applications for query building and trace visualization. Rank-phase statistics provide insights into query performance on a per-document level, aiding in real-time ranking performance tracking. Schema feeding flexibility, introduced in Vespa 8.20, allows document feeds to contain unknown fields, simplifying schema optimization and evolution. The beta applications, available on GitHub, are designed to facilitate query experimentation and help identify query latency issues. Additionally, rank trace profiling, available since Vespa 8.48, provides detailed information on time distribution across rank features, and a feeding bandwidth test feature was introduced in Vespa 8.35 to differentiate between application latency and client-server bandwidth issues. The update also mentions Vespa's capability to integrate custom Java code and the usefulness of query tracing and debugging in developing advanced use cases.