SharePoint 2013 – Create a Search Service Application and Search Topology with Powershell

What needs to be done?

14 steps for a simple Search Topology – 1 powershell can do them all.
1.Create a Service Application Pool for the Search Service Application (15-22)
2.Create a Search Service Application (22-28)
3.Create a Search Service Application Proxy (30-36)
4.Get the current Search Instance (38)
5.Save the current Search Topology for later use (39)
6.Create a new Search Topology (40)
7.Create all the Search Components (Analytics- , Content Processing, Query Processing, Crawler-, Admin Component) (42-46)
8.Remove the Index-Folder and recreate it (50-51)
9.Create a new Index Component (53)
10.Activate the new Topology (56)
11.Call the method synchronize on the old topology – this errors but forces an update on the old topology object (59)
12.The “forced updated” Topology object becomes inactive and can be deleted. (62)
13.Everything  done – start a full crawl order set it to the new shiny continuous crawling. Enjoy!

Here is my powershell script for creating the whole service application and creating a basic topology.

Please keep in mind that the $IndexLocation folder will be deleted and recreated.

Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#Settings
$IndexLocation = "C:\Search"  #Location must be empty, will be deleted during the process!
$SearchAppPoolName = "Search App Pool"
$SearchAppPoolAccountName = "demo\SPSearchAppPool"
$SearchServiceName = "Search SA"
$SearchServiceProxyName = "Search SA Proxy"

$DatabaseServer = "sp2013\sharepoint"
$DatabaseName = "SP2013 Search"

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Checking if Search Application Pool exists"
$spAppPool = Get-SPServiceApplicationPool -Identity $SearchAppPoolName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

if (!$spAppPool)
{
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Creating Search Application Pool"
    $spAppPool = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name $SearchAppPoolName -Account $SearchAppPoolAccountName -Verbose
}

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Checking if Search Service Application exists"
$ServiceApplication = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Identity $SearchServiceName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if (!$ServiceApplication)
{
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Creating Search Service Application"
    $ServiceApplication = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Name $SearchServiceName -ApplicationPool $spAppPool.Name -DatabaseServer  $DatabaseServer -DatabaseName $DatabaseName
}

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Checking if Search Service Application Proxy exists"
$Proxy = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy -Identity $SearchServiceProxyName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if (!$Proxy)
{
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Creating Search Service Application Proxy"
    New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy -Name $SearchServiceProxyName -SearchApplication $SearchServiceName
}

$searchInstance = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -local
$InitialSearchTopology = $ServiceApplication | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Active
$SearchTopology = $ServiceApplication | New-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology

New-SPEnterpriseSearchAnalyticsProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $SearchTopology -SearchServiceInstance $searchInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchContentProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $SearchTopology -SearchServiceInstance $searchInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent -SearchTopology $SearchTopology -SearchServiceInstance $searchInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlComponent -SearchTopology $SearchTopology -SearchServiceInstance $searchInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAdminComponent -SearchTopology $SearchTopology -SearchServiceInstance $searchInstance

set-SPEnterpriseSearchAdministrationComponent -SearchApplication $ServiceApplication -SearchServiceInstance  $searchInstance

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force -LiteralPath $IndexLocation -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
mkdir -Path $IndexLocation -Force

New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent -SearchTopology $SearchTopology -SearchServiceInstance $searchInstance -RootDirectory $IndexLocation

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Activating new topology"
$SearchTopology.Activate()

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Next call will provoke an error but after that the old topology can be deleted - just ignore it!"
$InitialSearchTopology.Synchronize()

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Deleting old topology"
Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $InitialSearchTopology -Confirm:$false
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Old topology deleted"
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Done - start a full crawl and you are good to go (search)."

The whole script took about 3 minutes on my machine.