# Ferret indexing openstreetmap.org data

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ferret-indexing-openstreetmap-org-data/171366>\
**Category:** Ferret\
**Created:** [July 1, 2009, 6:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ferret-indexing-openstreetmap-org-data/171366 "2009-07-01T06:27:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kelly\_J](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Kelly\_J](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Kelly_J)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 6:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ferret-indexing-openstreetmap-org-data/171366/1 "2009-07-01T06:27:35Z")

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I want to use Ferret to index [openstreetmap.org](http://openstreetmap.org)’s (OSM) node data: 400M  
pairs of latitudes and longitudes.

Has anyone already done this?

What optimizations can I use? I don’t need to access the data while  
it’s indexing, if that helps.

Can grid computing help here? Can I index chunks of data separately  
and then efficiently merge the indexes?

I realize OSM has lots more data (ways, tags, relations, etc), but  
indexing the nodes (to find all nodes within a given  
latitude/longitude range) would be my first step.

I also realize MySQL or PostgreSQL could do this, but I’m looking for  
an embedded/serverless solution and sqlite3 indexing is too slow.

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