Reliable Vendors Offer Customized Enterprise Search
November 7, 2012
Companies utilizing reliable data management software have been reaping the benefits of Big Data but developers are now scrambling to one up each other. It seems some software designers are making unrealistic promises while others proudly announce claims of software reinvention that stem from simple modifications offered by longstanding developers as a given.
SC Magazine’s article “Splunk Claims Speedier Reports with Enterprise 5” stresses how Splunk plans on winning the Big Data race by improving report speed renders:
“Splunk Enterprise already provided the ability to search, analyze and visualize machine data on tablets, smartphones, laptops and non-flash browsers. In Splunk Enterprise 4.x., skilled users could refine searches to save time, but “most users didn’t have the skill set required. An ad hoc report on ‘Web Errors broken out by URL and WebServer over the Last Month’ in a large multi-data center web environment across multiple terabytes of data might take 30 minutes to run. With report acceleration in Splunk Enterprise 5, that same report would render in less than two seconds.”
Faster does not necessarily mean better and big claims in Big Data should be swallowed with a grain of salt. Intrafind offers businesses enterprise search that is tailor made to fit specific enterprise information needs. The ability to define requirements, tweak criteria and customize search solutions increases efficiencies and provides a better ROI thanks to more targeted relevant results.
Jennifer Shockley, November 7, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Enterprise Content Management in the Big Data Era is Complex
November 6, 2012
The evolution of ECM through the past years can be tough to follow, and the future can be even harder to predict. The challenges range from digitizing paper documents to constant process changes. The article “Maturing ECM Technology Tested by Increase in Data” on PropertyCasualty360 speaks on the various problems that can arise in the Big Data era, like analyzing and managing content in data warehouses and the cloud.
The article continues and elaborates on the future of enterprise content management:
“Through web services, carriers will call out to the ECM systems to restore, retrieve, and search through documents. They are not necessarily interacting with the ECM solution, but the new core system as the front end.
‘There are different approaches being taken and the effort going forward and finding how these systems work together and how the workflows work together is proving to be a big job for carriers,’ says [David Packer, a principal for the technology consulting group X by 2.]”
Enterprise content management has multiple layers and they are complex, and the systems are likely to remain elaborate. Working with vendors such as Intrafind that offer secure access and robust search is a good business practice that can help alleviate some of the complexity.
Andrea Hayden, November 6, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Open Source Search: The Me Too Method Is Thriving
November 5, 2012
In the first three editions of The Enterprise Search Report (2003 to 2007), my team and I wrote, we made it clear that the commercial enterprise search vendors were essentially a bunch of me-too services.
The diagrams for the various systems were almost indistinguishable. Some vendors used fancy names for their systems and others stuck with the same nomenclature used in the SMART system. I pointed out that every enterprise search system has to perform certain basic functions: Content acquisition, indexing, query processing, and administration. But once those building blocks were in place, most of the two dozen vendors I profiled added wrappers which created a “marketing differentiator.” Examples ranged from Autonomy’s emphasis on the neuro linguistic processing to Endeca’s metadata for facets to Vivisimo’s building a single results list from federated content.
The rota fortunae of the medieval software licensee. A happy quack to http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/Ch.html
The reality was that it was very difficult for the engineers and marketers of these commercial vendors to differentiate clearly their system from dozens of look-alikes. With the consolidation of the commercial enterprise search sector in the last 36 months, the proprietary vendors have not changed the plumbing. What is new and interesting is that many of them are now “analytics,” “text mining,” or “business intelligence” vendors.
The High Cost of Re-Engineering
The key to this type of pivot is what I call “wrappers” or “add ins.” The idea is that an enterprise search system is similar to the old Ford and GM assembly lines of the 1970s. The cost for changing those systems was too high. The manufacturers operated them “as is”, hoping that chrome and options would give the automobiles a distinctive quality. Under the paint and slightly modified body panels, the cars were essentially the same old vehicle.
Commercial enterprise search solutions are similar today, and none has been overhauled or re-engineered in a significant way. That is okay. When a company licenses an enterprise search solution from Microsoft or Oracle, the customer is getting the brand and the security which comes from an established enterprise search vendor.
Let’s face it. The RECON or SDC Orbit system is usable without too much hassle by a high school student today. The precision and recall are in the 80 top 85 percent range. The US government has sponsored a text retrieval program for many years. The results of the tests are not widely circulated. However, I have heard that the precision and recall scores mostly stick in the 80 to 85 percent range. Once in a while a system will perform better, but search technology has, in my opinion, hit a glass ceiling. The commercial enterprise search sector is like the airline industry. The old business model is not working. The basic workhorse of the airline industry delivers the same performance as a jet from the 1970s. The big difference is that the costs keep on going up and passenger satisfaction is going down.
Open Source: Moving to Center Stage
But I am not interested in commercial enterprise search systems. The big news is the emergence of open source search options. Until recently, open source search was not mainstream. Today, open source search solutions are mainstream. IBM relies on Lucene/Solr for some of its search functions. IBM also owns Web Fountain, STAIRS, iPhrase, Vivisimo, and the SPSS Clementine technology, among others. IBM is interesting because it has used open source search technology to reduce costs and tap into a source of developer talent. Attivio, a company which just raised $42 million in additional venture funding, relies on open source search. You can bet your bippy that the investors want Attivio to turn a profit. I am not sure the financial types dive into the intricacies of open source search technology. Their focus is on the payoff from the money pumped into Attivio. Many other commercial content processing companies rely on open source search as well.
The interesting development is the emergence of pure play search vendors built entirely on the Lucene/Solr code. Anyone can download these “joined at the hip” software from the Apache Foundation. We have completed an analysis of a dozen of the most interesting open source search vendors for a big time consulting firm. What struck the ArnoldIT research team was:
- The open source search vendors are following the same path as the commercial enterprise search vendors. The systems are pretty much indistinguishable.
- The marketing “battle” is being fought over technical nuances which are of great interest to developers and, in my opinion, almost irrelevant to the financial person who has to pay the bills.
- The significant differentiators among the dozen companies we analyzed boils down to the companies’ financial stability, full time staff, and value-adding proprietary enhancements, customer support, training, and engineering services.
What this means is that the actual functionality of these open source search systems is similar to the enterprise proprietary solutions. In the open source sector, some vendors specialize by providing search for a Big Data environment or for remediating the poor search system in MySQL and its variants. Other companies sell a platform and leave the Lucene/Solr component as a utility service. Others just take the Lucene/Solr and go forward.
The Business View
In a conversation with Paul Doscher, president of LucidWorks, I learned that his organization is working through the Project Management Committee (PMC) Group of the Lucene/Solr project within the Apache Software Foundation to build the next-generation search technology. The effort is to help transform people’s ability to turn data into decision making information.
This next generation search technology is foundational in developing a big data technology stack to enable enterprisers to reap the rewards of the latest wave of innovation.
The key point is that figuring out which open source search system does what is now as confusing and time consuming as figuring out the difference between the proprietary enterprise search systems was 10 years ago.
Will there be a fix for me-too’s in enterprise search. I think that some technology will be similar and probably indistinguishable to non-experts? What is now raising the stakes is that search systems are viewed as utilities. Customers want answers, visualizations, and software which predicts what will happen. In my opinion, this is search with fuzzy dice, 20 inch chrome wheels, and a 200 watt sound system.
The key points of differentiation for me will remain the company’s financial stability, its staff quality, its customer service, its training programs, and its ability to provide engineering services to licensees who require additional services. In short, the differentiators may boil down to making systems pay off for licensees, not marketing assertions.
In the rush to cash in on organizations’ need to cut costs, open source search is now the “new” proprietary search solution. Buyer beware? More than ever. The Wheel of Fortune in search is spinning again. Who will be a winner? Who will be a loser? Place your bets. I am betting on open source search vendors with the service and engineering expertise to deliver.
Stephen E Arnold, November 5, 2012
Social Content Proves Valuable to Enterprise Search Solutions
November 5, 2012
Enterprise search is a rapidly evolving area of technology in the corporate world and businesses are wise to learn to collect and reconcile related information quickly. As multiple search capabilities evolve across platforms in the enterprise and online, people need to learn how to make use of each specific capability that is available. A recent article on CMSWire titled “Social Reconnects Enterprise Search” tells us of the need to integrate social search into enterprise search technologies.
The article explains the importance of the addition of social context in addition to an existing enterprise search solution:
“Enterprise search can tap into employee profiles, internal networks, other work-related interactions, and systems usage to personalize search and extend context in order to return the most relevant results. Beyond the usual ‘systems of record,’ social networks and activities provide a great deal of contextual information, especially in terms of topics. The composite of all of these attributes can indicate each person’s professional purview and work focus, which can better connect that person to the right information.”
As social content increases in importance to businesses, reliable and secure enterprise search solutions such as those offered by Intrafind will grow in importance to the overall capabilities of organizations. Be sure to harness all of the tools that are available to fully take advantage of the information at your hands.
Andrea Hayden, November 5, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Big Data is New Google API Biggest Challenge
November 5, 2012
Google is making a push into the enterprise search market. One step toward doing so is the introduction of the Google Translate API and an update to its search appliance. Matthew Eichner, general manager of Global Enterprise Search, says that Google is taking a different approach to enterprise than in the past. Full details can be read in, “Google Updates Search Appliance – Adds Google Translate API To Target Global Market.” It is reasonable that Google would want a piece of the enterprise market, but many obstacles stand in its way.
The article’s author, Alex Williams, writes:
“Open-source search providers are GSA’s deepest competition. LucidWorks is one of the leaders in providing enterprise search. In May, it launched a data beta project, LucidWorks Big Data, which certifies and integrates Apache open source components to develop and manage big data applications. Yes, Google does have an edge in search overall but what I don’t see is GSA’s application to big data applications.”
LucidWorks has the name recognition and the industry support to continue its dominance of the open source enterprise search market. Venturing out into Big Data is just icing on the cake, a move that LucidWorks can naturally make, while others are rushing to catch up.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 05, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Search Appliance Updates for the Enterprise
November 2, 2012
The shiny new 7.0 version of Google Search Appliance has been updated for the enterprise, now allowing administrators to add information to the cloud, various social media outlets, and other online storage sites. According to the article “Enterprise Tools Added to Google Search Appliance” on PC Advisor, the upgrade includes a new Entity Recognition feature with auto suggestions for searches as well as a document preview feature.
The article tells us why the need for such an update is necessary for the enterprise:
“IDC analyst David Schubmehl said users would like enterprise searches to be as easy as Web searches, noting that slow searches can hurt productivity. A 2009 IDC study found that the time spent searching for data averaged 8.8 hours per week per employee, at a cost of $14,209 per worker per year.”
We believe Google Enterprise offers some great features, including the option for employees to add their own search results to existing results. However, if secure search and access is an enterprise priority for your corporation, then we would recommend a careful examination before opting for Google Enterprise. A company such as Intrafind offers a secure option for searching structured and unstructured enterprise data.
Andrea Hayden, November 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM PureData Systems Provide Powerful Big Data Solution
November 1, 2012
Big Data woes are being addressed in a big way by IBM, with the introduction of three new systems for information management and analysis. We learn about IBM Pure Systems in the CloudTimes article “IBM Introduces PureData to Address Big Data Challenges.” The article tells us about the category of systems which focuses on simple cloud functionality and easy-to-use features, helping companies tackle the increasing global data volume.
The article informs:
“Pure Systems helps companies reduce the time and money to spend on IT maintenance and focus more on business innovation. The new PureData helps companies meet the challenge of managing these large volumes of information as it is able to perform complex data analysis in minutes rather than hours.
[…] The IBM PureData Systems allows working in a cloud model and is able to consolidate more than 100 databases into a single system. Like other members of the initial PureSystems offering, PureData is capable of implementing web applications in less than 10 days.”
The IBM Pure initiative is supported by enterprise search leader Intrafind, which is one of the first certified application providers of this new family of expert integrated systems. Intrafind’s cloud solutions and their partnership with IBM Pure make for a powerful option in cloud enterprise search applications.
Andrea Hayden, November 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Enterprise Search Continues to Adapt
October 31, 2012
Technology either evolves or it dies, and enterprise search is evolving in the face of technological innovations. One might be compelled to believe differently if reading CMS Wire’s article “Contextualized Computing and the Death of Traditional Enterprise Search”, but alas it will be a simple case of misdiagnosis.
The enterprise will be undergoing some new treatments of sorts, one of which is comparable to Social therapy:
“Search is not a separate technology or program; it must integrate with business processes and corporate initiatives as vital infrastructure. Search for all employees aligns with communication, connectedness and collaboration — bringing us into Social constructs. Social can serve to fine-tune or filter search by leveraging additional information about the Searcher, as a valuable enhancement. This includes tapping into employee profiles, internal networks and other work-related interactions to return relevant data. Social interactions also enable valuable “serendipitous or accidental acquisition of information or knowledge.”
The death of search will come when humanity rejects all technology and returns to the caves but that doesn’t seem realistic considering today’s thriving market. Instead, some enterprise search software is getting smarter, becoming more adaptable and ultimate will increase efficiency. Intrafind has been offering enterprise search solutions for over a decade and providing secure, enterprise wide access to relevant information quickly and efficiently while implementing targeted data towards the directed task at hand. Enterprise search is alive, well and best of all… adaptable.
Jennifer Shockley, October 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Content Distribution is Only Part of the Enterprise Puzzle
October 30, 2012
One cannot argue the importance of content delivery, but it is only one portion of the enterprise as a whole. Companies focused primarily on video delivery may end up a few pieces short of the complete enterprise puzzle, but according to Information Week’s article “Kontiki: A New Approach To Enterprise Content Delivery” Kontiki thinks video is the answer.
As a startup venture, Kontiki’s CEO is hoping to make an impact on the future of enterprise content distribution:
“Kontiki has been quietly garnering the enterprise video distribution business of companies like GM, Nestle, Coca Cola, and Wells Fargo, to name just a few. The company’s secret sauce is compelling IT shops to consider an approach that obviates the need for expensive WAN acceleration hardware. (The system takes video into a remote branch one time and distributes it peer-to-peer throughout the network.) Think of it as enterprise content delivery–like a CDN, but it moves content inside the firewall.”
Kontiki holds some very lucrative video management contracts but successful businesses look for complete enterprise solutions. A sizeable portion of the enterprise actually lies in the searching, seizing and sorting of both structured and unstructured data. Since enterprise content distribution is a final process, Kontiki’s clients have a powerful distribution platform but may need to utilize additional system in order to acquire usable data and make everything click together. An enterprise seeking a secure search application that locates and delegates targeted content to the right users at the most relevant times will find that Intrafind offers a solution that can complete the enterprise puzzle.
Jennifer Shockley, October 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Enterprise Search Requires Speed and Security
October 29, 2012
Enterprise search platforms are constantly developing and changing to fit the needs of the enterprise, and a new release from DtSearch is attempting to fill some of those needs. We learn about the update in “DtSearch 7.70 Adds Document Filters, Increased Multi-Level Search” on CMSWire, which states the newest version includes enhanced document filters and APIs for OEMs to assist in data management.
The article tells us more about the benefits of the product:
“The search products’ spider can search local/remote content and static/dynamic web content, and it can reach across public/private sites, including support for log-ins and forms-based authentication. More than a terabyte of text can be covered in a single index, including directories, databases, online data and emails, and an unlimited number of indexes can be created and searched. According to dtSearch, that indexed search time is under a second, even across terabytes.”
While the new version does a great job responding to current issues in the enterprise, we believe security in search should be a priority when updating platforms. For a choice that provides high-performance full text search across various content sources while still focusing on access rights and secure search, we recommend Intrafind’s iFinder for enterprise search solutions.
Andrea Hayden, October 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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