Connect a Data Lake Formation (DLF) Paimon table to OpenSearch Retrieval Engine Edition so that new data written to DLF is automatically indexed in real time — no ingestion pipeline required.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, ensure that you have:
A catalog, a database, and a table created in DLF — these are configured during data synchronization
(Existing instances only) The offline version of your instance upgraded before adding a DLF data source
Familiarity with DLF
Limitations
Only catalogs of the Paimon type are supported.
Primary key tables: support add, delete, modify, and query operations.
Append-only tables: support add only. Modify and delete are not allowed.
Add a DLF data source
The workflow moves through four steps in the OpenSearch console: configure basic table information, connect the DLF data source, define the index schema, and confirm creation.
Log on to the OpenSearch Retrieval Engine Edition console. In the left-side navigation pane, click Instances, then click the ID of your instance. In the instance navigation pane, click Table Management, and then click Add Table.
In the Basic Table Information step, configure the following parameters and click Next.
Parameter Description Table Name A custom name for the table. Data Shards Number of data shards. Must be a positive integer not exceeding 256. Set this to no more than three times the number of Searcher workers. Number of Resources for Data Updates Number of resources used for data updates. Each table includes a free quota of 2 resources (4 vCPUs and 8 GB memory each). Additional resources are charged. 
In the Data Synchronization step, configure the following parameters to connect the DLF data source, then click Check to verify the connection. If the check passes, click Next.
Parameter Description Full Data Source Select DLF. Catalog ID ID of the DLF catalog to access. Database Name of the database in the catalog. Data Table Name of the table in the database. 
In the Index Schema step, configure the index schema using Form Mode or Developer Mode, then click Next.
Review the configuration and confirm creation. The system automatically creates the table. Track progress on the Change History page. Once the table status changes to In Use, run a query on the Query Test page to verify the setup.
Real-time indexing behavior
When new data is written to the Paimon table in DLF, OpenSearch automatically creates an index in real time based on that data. If you manually write data to the Paimon table by calling an API, data inconsistency may occur — proceed with caution.