Darren Perucci has a checklist for spinning up a production ElasticSearch environment:
When you are looking for a node or a cluster, it is a good idea to have a name which describes what you will need to find and separates one from another.
The default cluster name of “elasticsearch ” could allow any nodes to join the cluster, even if this was not intended. Thus, it is a good idea to give the cluster a distinct identifier instead.
There are a few things to think about in this post.