This book was written using Elasticsearch version 2.0.0, and all the examples and functions should work with it. Using Oracle Java 1.7 u55 and above is recommended for creating Elasticsearch clusters. In addition to this, you'll need a command that allows you to send HTTP requests, such as curl, which is available for most operating systems. In addition to this, this book covers all the examples using Python and Java.

For Java examples, you will need to have Java JDK (Java Development Kit) installed and an editor that will allow you to develop your code (such as Eclipse). Apache Maven has been used to build Java codes.

To run the Python examples, you will need Python 2.7 and above and will also need to install Elasticsearch-Py, the official Python client for Elasticsearch.

In addition to this, some chapters may require additional software such as Elasticsearch plugins and other software but it has been explicitly mentioned when certain types of software are needed.