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)
Permissions to create resources in your subscription

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

Create Your Search Service

Navigate to the Azure portal and sign in with your Azure account

Create a Resource

Click Create a resource in the upper-left corner, then search for Azure AI Search

Choose Subscription

Select the Azure subscription where you want to create the search service

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

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

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 region requirements

Choose Pricing Tier

Select your pricing tier based on your needs. See Pricing Tiers below for details.

Select Compute Type

Standard (recommended): Standard Azure VMs with data encrypted at rest and in transit
Confidential: Hardware-based trusted execution environment (10% surcharge)

Review and Create

Review your configuration and click Create to deploy the service

Pricing Tiers

Azure AI Search offers multiple pricing tiers:

Free
Basic
Standard
Storage Optimized

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

Complete most quickstarts and tutorials on the Free tier.

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

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

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

Region Selection

Checklist for Choosing a Region

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

Data Residency

Keep services in the same region to minimize latency
No bandwidth charges for same-region services
Consider compliance and data sovereignty requirements

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

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

Configure Authentication

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

Navigate to Keys

In your search service, go to Settings > Keys

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

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)

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

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

Go to Scale Settings

Navigate to Settings > Scale in your search service

Adjust Replicas

Use the slider to increase or decrease replicas

Adjust Partitions

Use the slider to increase or decrease partitions

Review Cost

Check the estimated monthly cost before applying changes

Scaling is only available on billable tiers. Free tier services cannot be scaled.

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

Confidential compute has limited regional availability and disables certain features. Review data in use documentation before selecting.

Monitor Your Service

Once deployed, monitor service health and usage:

Service Dashboard: View overview metrics
Metrics: Query latency, throttling, index size
Logs: Diagnostic logs for troubleshooting
Alerts: Set up notifications for issues

Cost Management

Optimize your search service costs:

Right-Size Resources

Start small and scale up based on actual usage metrics

Monitor Usage

Use Azure Cost Management to track spending

Optimize Indexing

Schedule indexer runs during off-peak hours

Review Replicas

Scale down replicas when high availability isn’t needed

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

You cannot separate indexing and querying workloads. Both operations run on the same service.

Request Additional Quota

Azure subscriptions have limits on the number of search services:

Navigate to Quotas service in Azure portal
Filter by Search services
Select your subscription and region
Click Request adjustment
Enter new limit (must exceed current)
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

New-AzSearchService -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
    -Name "mysearchservice" `
    -Location "West US" `
    -Sku "Standard"

Azure CLI

az search service create \
    --name mysearchservice \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --location westus \
    --sku Standard

ARM Template

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

Bicep

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

Next Steps

Create an Index

Build your first search index

Import Data

Load data from Azure services

Security

Configure authentication and access control

Monitoring

Set up monitoring and alerts

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Agentic Retrieval

Indexing

Queries

​Create an Azure AI Search Service

​Before You Start

​Prerequisites

​Create Your Search Service

​Pricing Tiers

​Naming Guidelines

​Valid Service Names

​Invalid Service Names

​Region Selection

​Checklist for Choosing a Region

​Configure Authentication

​Scale Your Service

​Replicas and Partitions

​Scaling Example

​Compute Type Selection

​Standard Compute (Default)

​Confidential Compute

​Monitor Your Service

​Cost Management

Right-Size Resources

Monitor Usage

Optimize Indexing

Review Replicas

​When to Add a Second Service

​Request Additional Quota

​Alternative Creation Methods

​Azure PowerShell

​Azure CLI

​ARM Template

​Bicep

​Next Steps

Create an Index

Import Data

Security

Monitoring

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Create an Azure AI Search Service

Before You Start

Prerequisites

Create Your Search Service

Pricing Tiers

Naming Guidelines

Valid Service Names

Invalid Service Names

Region Selection

Checklist for Choosing a Region

Configure Authentication

Scale Your Service

Replicas and Partitions

Scaling Example

Compute Type Selection

Standard Compute (Default)

Confidential Compute

Monitor Your Service

Cost Management

When to Add a Second Service

Request Additional Quota

Alternative Creation Methods

Azure PowerShell

Azure CLI

ARM Template

Bicep

Next Steps