CQL and DSE Search offer scalable, highly available, operationally simple, and user-friendly access to a Lucene-backed index. Developments in DSE 4.8 point releases have made it possible to query search indexes directly from CQL using DataStax drivers, eliminating the need for two sets of DAO's, load balancers, and addressing performance issues related to HTTP Basic Authentication. NumFound and facet queries are now supported via CQL and solr_query in DSE 4.8.1+ versions. Additionally, partition routing is a useful multi-tennant feature that limits the amount of fan out for search queries, while JSON queries enable advanced searching through CQL. The timeAllowed parameter allows users to set maximum latency for search results when scanning entire datasets is not required.