Sameer Maggon presented on using Apache Solr as the search engine for Sitecore implementations. He began with an overview of Solr and its advantages over Azure Search for large Sitecore sites. He then discussed different Solr topology options including standalone, master-slave, SolrCloud, and cross-data center replication. Maggon also covered how to architect production-grade Solr and Zookeeper installations along with backups and recovery processes. He concluded by promoting SearchStax as a way to get a production-ready Solr environment configured in just 30 minutes.