Enterprise Search Deployment Time
January 14, 2010
Our Overflight service snagged a news item in May 2009. The title was “Airbus Licenses Vivisimo Velocity Search Platform”. The release was good news for Vivisimo and straight forward, saying:
Vivisimo (Vivisimo.com), a leader in enterprise search, has entered into a major agreement with aircraft manufacturer Airbus for the license of the Vivisimo Velocity Search Platform. The license covers the corporate-wide intranet for Airbus and some extranet services for Airbus customers, indexing up to two petabytes of data for more than 50,000 users. Vivisimo had already provided search for a group within Airbus before winning the company’s broader corporate business in a competitive setting. In a solution proof of concept, Vivisimo Velocity demonstrated its capability to handle the complexity of Airbus’ many data repositories while respecting the company’s various security parameters.
When I read this, I thought that Airbus made a wise decision. A deployment and an evaluation process was used. That’s smart. Most organizations license an engine and then plunge ahead.
The news item I received in my email this morning was equally clear. “Airbus Lifts Off Vivisimo Velocity to Provide More than 50,000 Users the Power of Search” states:
Vivisimo (Vivisimo.com), a leader in enterprise search, today announced the successful installation of its award-winning Vivisimo Velocity Search Platform with the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer Airbus. Through this deployment, Velocity is powering search across its corporate-wide intranet and its customers, indexing up to two petabytes of data for more than 50,000 users.
After a quote the news release said:
In less than one month since the completed installation of Velocity, search has become the fastest growing application on the customer portal (AirbusWorld) homepage in terms of usage, which has resulted in increased page views.
I think the uptake information is good news for Airbus users and for Vivisimo. The other upside of my having these two statements is that it is possible to calculate roughly the time required for a prudent organization to move from decision to deploy to actual availability of the search service. The deal was signed in May 2009, and the system went online about January 2010. That means that after the trial period, another six months was required to deploy the system.
Several observations:
- Appliance vendors have indicated that their solution requires less time. One vendor pegs the deployment time in a matter of days. Another suggested a month for a complicated installation.
- The SaaS search vendors have demonstrated a deployment time of less than four hours for one test we ran for a governmental unit. Other vendors have indicated times in the days to two week periods, depending on the complexity of the installation. The all time speed champ is Blossom.com, which we used for the Threat Open Source Information Gateway project.
- System centric vendors with solutions that snap into SharePoint, for example, have indicated an installation time of a half day to as much as a week, depending on the specific SharePoint environment.
- Tool kit vendors typically require weeks or months to deploy an enterprise search system. However, in certain situations like a search system for a major publishing company’s online service, the time extended beyond six months.
What’s this mean? Vivisimo’s installation time is on a par with other high profile systems’ deployment times. The reason is that the different components must be integrated with the clients’ systems. In addition, certain types of customization—not always possible with appliances or SaaS solutions—are like any other software set up. Tweaking takes time.
With Google’s emphasis on speed, the Google Search Appliance is positioning itself to be a quicker install that some of the high profile enterprise systems.
What’s this mean? It looks to me that one group of vendors and services can deliver speedier installations. Other vendors offset speed with other search requirements. Beyond that obvious statement, I will have to think about the cost implications of deployment time.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 14, 2010
No one paid me to write this short article. Why would anyone pay me? It’s been 65 years of financial deprivation. I think I have to report this monetary fact to the Social Security folks.
Google Odds: A Possible Search First
January 13, 2010
Amidst the furor of the Google – China issue, I noticed that most of the pundits ignored the global disruptive power of a Google decision. I may be one of the few—maybe the only addled goose—pointing out that Google operates like a nation-state, not a garden variety company. Another example of Google’s significance popped up in my Overflight service this morning. PaddyPower.com, an online wagering operation, issued a news release with the headline “Bookie Calls Google for Chinese Takeaway.” The company has put odds on Google’s action. Here’s the relevant passage:
Bookies Paddy Power are offering odds of 3/1 that Internet giant Google will follow through on it’s threat to quit China before 2012. The harsh warning by the worlds biggest search engine was sparked after the illegal hacking of Chinese Gmail accounts and comes amid increasing tensions between the US and China over Internet censorship. Any move by Google to quit China will no doubt comes as good news for China’s leading search engine, Baidu, that currently enjoys a 60 percent share of the Chinese Internet search market. Paddy Power are quoting odds of 10/11 that their market share will increase to 65 per cent by the end of 2010. Paddy Power said “China is obviously a massive potential market for Google so it will be interesting to see what the long-term strategic impact will be should they effectively give two fingers to the Chinese government and jump ship”
Three to one. If I were a betting goose, maybe?
Stephen E. Arnold, January 13, 2010
No one paid me to write this news item. Since it relates to wagering, I will report it to one of the many lottery commissions. Now which state governs geese?
Search Merging with CMS
January 13, 2010
When you have a CMS “hammer”, you have the opportunity to see an information problem as something that can be pounded with CMS. Let me be upfront. Most organizations are not in the information business. The idea that Big O’s tires in Kentucky is an information company is not just silly; it’s a financially imprudent assertion. Big O’s is a retail operation that sells tires and services. The company’s Web site is a marketing is a marketing effort, but when you need tires for your Hummer with a gun mount, you have to haul on over to the closest Big O’s, pony up cash, and get your tires mounted, balanced, and bolted on. Sure, information is important to the Big O operation, but like many other businesses, Big O’s moves tires. Information is an enabler, sort of a digital lubricant. A person dressed up in a Daniel Boone outfit holding a sign that says, “50% off Tires. Today only.” is information. But the pointy end of the business is selling tires.
Just hop right into the CMS tanning bed. It will make you look and feel great. Oh, there may be some risks, but what’s more important? Looking great or becoming a human Blutwurst.
When I read CMS Wire’s short article “MySource Matrix” I was surprised that search is becoming part of CMS. Yikes. CMS, content management systems, refers to a bunch of software components that perform integrated content operations for Web sites. There are document management systems that help nuclear power plants keep track of engineering change orders. And there are really expensive enterprise publishing systems from Hewlett Packard and StreamServe that manage and output certain types of enterprise information. I grant that when you can’t find a document, you can’t do much with any of these systems. So, search is a utility. Search in any of these three types of content systems often is not particularly good. Vendors license “stubs” stick them in CMS and related systems so when more features are needed, the vendors can turn on the taxi meter. Software cannot put an editorial sense into an organization. Humans have to do that, and humans often are not able to perceive the problem or its optimal solution when basking in the vendor’s tanning salon.
Here’s the passage from Squiz that caught my attention:
They’ve [Squiz, Funnelback, and MySource Matrix] chosen this direction because they see the lines between CMS and search blurring, where some projects may need search-based vertical applications rather than starting with a separate CMS and search library. According to Morgan [Squiz executive], this approach will reduce integration costs and increase access to data across an organization.
Note: Squiz owns the Funnelback search system. You can see this in action on the Australian Resource Centre for Healthcare Innovation or ARCHI.
Most CMS, DMS, and enterprise publishing systems are complicated beasties, and each has a contribution to make to certain organizations, the path to a functioning, easy to maintain content system can be a long, difficult one. In my experience, CMS means managing a Web site. CMS has been stretched into DMS territory, and some of the vendors with the biggest marketing horn have floundered and ended up chum for the M&A crowd. The document management systems that focus on a specific content purpose like the aforementioned ECOs work well, but one needs to have an records management specialist handy. The enterprise publishing systems are not widely known outside of certain market sectors. These cost a lot of money and suffer from one fatal flaw in my opinion. Most lack an information infrastructure service or foundation. No foundation, the structure built on it is dicey.
This notion of having everything in one place so anyone can edit, repurpose, and search is a great idea. Today, the cost of achieving that utopia can be high, both in time and money.
I can see the direction this marketing angle will lead. Thank goodness I am old and won’t have to deal with the wackiness these big marketing ideas unleash on cash strapped organizations struggling to keep their systems from breaking the bank each time those systems crash. There’s a lot of opportunity in content, but fuzzy thinking may not be what Boards of Directors and CFOs want.
Stephen E Arnold, January 13, 2010
I want to disclose to the Office of Management and Budget that I was not paid to point out the financial issues of fuzzy thinking. I bet this article was a surprise to them. Don’t Federal content and document managements systems work like spinning tops?
Copyright and the Generation Angle
January 12, 2010
Short honk: If you are into the copyright battles now underway, you may find “The Copyright Bubble” interesting. At a minimum, it makes clear that a demographic blip is part of the problem. The thought I had was that parents of copyright ignorers may want to take another run at changing their children’s behaviors. If a child—now 25 –embraces the copyright bad mentality, perhaps more aggressive parental action is needed. The implication of the write up is that when old folks head to the traditional heaven where the Internet does not work, copyright will be okay. Failing that, the author of the Copyright Bubble may be correct.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2010
I know the disclosure ruling became effective on December 1, 2010. It is the new year and I still am writing this baloney for no money. I think I will reveal this fact to the Marine Mammal Commission.
The Paywall Chronicles: The Value of Fuzziness
January 9, 2010
Short honk: Getting money for electronic information is tough. A peek inside a new media financial concept appears in “Steven Brill’s Growing Mound of Twaddle.” The most interesting part of the write up is a chart that plots alleged customers with announced customers. Zero seems to flat line as the announced customer tally soars.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 9, 2010
A freebie. I know at least one reader thinks I am a PR bunny. I suppose I must report this to the Fish & Wildlife crew.
Autonomy Targets Marketers
January 7, 2010
A number of pundits, poobahs, and mavens are beavering away with their intellectual confections that explain enterprise search in 2010. The buzz from those needing billable work is that enterprise search is gone goose (pun intended) and that niche solutions are the BIG NEWS for 2010.
I thought I wrote an article for Search Magazine two or three years ago that made this point. But the Don and Donna Quixotes of the consulting world are chasing old chimera. I nailed the real thing for Barbara Quint, one of my most beloved editors. With Gartner buying Burton Group, the azure chip crowd is making clear that the down market push of Booz, Allen (now a for fee portal vendor) and the up market push of the Gerson Lehrmans of the world is making their sales Panini toasty and squishy.
Against this background, I noted this Reuters’ news item: “Autonomy Interwoven Enables Marketers to Deliver the Most Relevant End-to-End Search Experience.” I have difficulty figuring out which articles branded as Reuters-created is from the “real” Reuters and which comes from outfits that are in the bulk content business (sorry I can’t mention names even though you demand this of me) and which comes from public relations firms with caviar budgets. You will have to crack this conundrum yourself.
The write up points out that Autonomy makes it possible for those engaged in marketing to provide their users with “relevant end-to-end search experience.” I am not clever enough to unwrap this semantic package. For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
A recent report published by Gartner entitled Leading Websites Will Use Search, Advanced Analytics to Target Content states: “Search technology provides a mechanism for users to indicate their desires through implicit values, such as their roles and other attributes, and explicit values such as query keywords. Website managers, information architects, search managers and Web presence managers can adopt search technologies to improve site value and user impact.” The research note goes on to say, “Choose Web content management (WCM) vendors that have robust search technologies or that have gained them through partnerships, acquisitions or the customization of open-source technology.”
The explanation of “most relevant end-to-end search experience” hooks in part to an azure chip consultant report (maybe a Gartner Group product?) that is equally puzzling to me. Here’s where I ran into what my fifth grade teacher, Miss Chessman, would have called a “lack of comprehension.”
- What the heck is relevant?
- What is end-to-end?
- What is search?
- What is experience?
- What is a Web presence manager?
- What is a robust search technology?
I try to be upfront about my being an old, addled goose. I understand that Autonomy has acquired a number of interesting technologies. I understand that azure chip consulting firms have to produce compelling intellectual knowledge value to pay their bills.
What I don’t understand is what the message is from Reuters (this “news” story looks like a PR release), from Autonomy (I thought the company sold the Intelligent Data Operating Layer, not experience), and from Gartner (what’s with the job titles and references to open source?).
I will be 66 in a few months, and I don’t think anyone in the assisted living facility will be able to help me figure out the info payload of this Reuters’-stamped write up. What happened to the journalism school’s pyramid structure? What happened to who, what, why, when, where, and how? Obviously I am too far down the brain trail to keep pace with modern communication.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 8, 2010
Oyez, oyez, I have to report to the Library of Congress, check out a dictionary, and admit to the guard on duty that I was not paid to explain I haven’t a clue about the meaning of this write up. I do understand the notion of rolling up other companies in order to get new revenue and customers, but this relevance and experience stuff baffles me. I am the goose who has been pointing out that “search sucks” for free too.
IBM and Its SEO Guru
January 5, 2010
I read an unusual write up on the DCDCQ.com Web site. No, I don’t know what the domain name means. The article was called “SEO in China Will Never Be the Same as Google’s James Mi, Adverted’s Stephen Noton and IBM’s Bill Hu [sic]”. The article explains how to get a site on the first page of a results list. I find this type of intentional manipulation annoying and usually misleading. But there are some folks who want to put more effort into spoofing algorithms than creating substantive content and providing information of high quality on a particular topic. It takes all kinds. I was going to blow off the article until one section made me laugh.
Here’s the passage that stopped me in my tracks:
The finial speaker, Hunt, might just be the most experienced SEO person on this panel because, china, unlike Noton (who headed to Asia to work with more startups and the upcoming corporate elite) is based, china, in the US and works with the current corporate elite including being the man behind IBM’s Search Engine Optimization success. Hunt’s talk involved him showing some of, China, the work he’s done with IBM, which really complimented, China, the other speakers. Hunt showed how changing text in images into pure text and how proper navigation and title tags can make a clients site like IBM grow from being in the top 100 to being #1 within 3 short weeks.
What! Several years ago at the Boston search engine meeting, there was a presentation by an IBM search engine guru that made zero sense to me. I had one of my goslings follow up with this person on a technical matter and she reported that he had zero clue about search and content processing.
Now we have a Web site that I have pointed out as essentially non functional used as an example of great SEO. Yo, dude. I don’t care what country is the searcher’s home base. I know that if I cannot locate information about a specific IBM product or service, the Web presence is fatally flawed. The notion that IBM can become the number one result for Web queries is interesting but essentially not supported in my experience.
Wow. The New Year is off to an amazing SEO start from IBM. Number one with a bullet. Try this query: “content management system”. Keep in mind that IBM owns FileNet, iPhrase, and other CMS systems. Scan the result list. No IBM on the first page, right? IBM is number one in the query “mainframe right after the Wikipedia entry.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 2, 2010
Full disclosure: A freebie. I shall report to Defense Field Activities when the government opens for the new year.
GrabIt Described for Noobs
January 4, 2010
Usenet can be a treasure chest of information. If I mention Usenet in a lecture, I see few sparks of recognition. PCWorld’s “Old-School Secret: Delve Into Usenet With GrabIt” does a good job of explaining Usenet content and providing useful information about GrabIt, an open source tool for accessing the content and assembling split files. The write up also includes links to other software that makes Usenet suitable for the under 25 cohort. Useful write up which is not about search or content processing. But findability and access are close cousins.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 4, 2010
A freebie. Whom do I tell? I know, I know. When Washington DC reopens for the new year, my oversight authority is probably the National Institute for Literacy, an entity which I am confident reads Usenet postings.
Microsoft and Its Australian Play to Beat Google
January 3, 2010
Microsoft is going to beat Google by posting Australian centric images on the Australian version of Bing.com. You can read about this strategic thrust in “Bing Banks on Aussie Icons to Beat Google”. For me the key to the idea was this comment:
Australian technology blogger Long Zheng, who has archived all the images that have appeared on Bing since its launch in May, praised Microsoft for providing “an opportunity to explore and learn without searching at all”.
Yes, a search engine that obviates the need for searching. I know when I am looking up information about a weird skin cancer on my hand, I definitely care about a nifty picture of a sunset. Or, when I am trying to locate information about a specific piece of software to solve a major problem, I want to relax and check out a beach scene or a sports team in a moment of ritualistic physical interlocking.
Once Bing.com has torn off Google’s ear in the Austrian search rugby match, expect the same method elsewhere.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 3, 20010
Oyez, oyez, a freebie. I will report this to the Administration on Developmental Disabilities when Washington, DC again reopens sometime next week. In the meantime, keep in mind this is an uncompensated post.
IT Consumerization and Search
January 2, 2010
“Consumerization of IT Unstoppable, Says European Telecom Giant” kick started my thinking about search, content processing, and information access in organizations. The premise of the article is that “consumerization [of information technology] is unstoppable. The comment was made in the context of a discussion about security. No matter. The point is that in order to deliver a system that works, the days of the wild and crazy complexity may have to give way to enterprise software that works like a refrigerator or an iPad.
Now this type of statement can whip computer wizards into a frenzy. I think I understand their concern. Since 2000, nerds have been the big winners. The big success stories have come from companies able to create products and services that almost anyone can use. If you can’t figure out an iPad or a Google search box, you are pretty much screwed in today’s world.
What’s happening is that the top tech people will just become more powerful. The outfits able to crack the consumer appliance code will do pretty well. The users, well, the users get products and services anyone can use without much effort. For those not in the top tier or inhabiting a job in the shrinking middle, turn on the TV and do whatever.
One interesting factoid in the write up was:
“At Check Point, we have been looking at application usage, and 75 percent of our bandwidth is for non office-based services – it was for consumer oriented apps. How do you control that?
If personal use is growing, those lucky few with jobs may want to think about how to cover their online tracks.
How long will consumerization take? A long time if IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have any part to play. These companies thrive on complex products, lots of support services revenue, and certified professionals who play the witting or unwitting role as friction on the wheels of change.
And search? My hunch is that hosted services will see an uptick in 2011. I don’t have too much enthusiasm for appliances. Each appliance is different and I don’t want to learn how to handle proprietary gizmos unless I absolutely have to. Will Microsoft consumerize search? Have you taken a look at SharePoint and Fast search server yet?
Stephen E Arnold, January 2, 2011
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