Combine the Cloud and On-Premise Capabilities in SharePoint
March 19, 2012
Over at the SharePoint Pro Blog, Chris McNulty recently posted, “The SharePoint Decision: Do We Choose Cloud or On-Premises?” In the article, the author looks at SharePoint Online versus on-premises SharePoint. SharePoint Online lacks a few features found in an on-premises farm, but SharePoint Online opens new doors that are appealing. McNulty offers a list of questions to ask yourself with respective scores for each answer that may help you decide between the two SharePoint options.
McNulty has this to say:
It’s also important to remember that a cloud vision is almost always a future-looking strategy. Since the cloud is uniformly available, it’s easier to deliver content to users with less respect for their immediate location or device (PCs, tablets, smartphones). Similarly, although Office 365 and SharePoint Online lack features relative to on-premises SharePoint, this isn’t expected to be a permanent situation. If we project forward through the next release of SharePoint, we can forecast a time when the on-premises and cloud versions of SharePoint provide nearly identical functions.
The guidance questions cover a variety of topics, such as the extent of your SharePoint IT team, geographic limitations, and budget outlooks. These questions may be helpful to help you evaluate your system, but we like a simpler solution. Consider a third party solution that combines the best of both worlds. A solution worth a close look is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. One of the key components in their full suite of solutions is the information pairing technology:
Our information pairing technology makes you unbeatable. Information pairing brings enterprise information and information in the Cloud together. This gives you an overall image of a company’s knowledge. This is the basis for your competitive advantage. In this way you can act quickly, reliably, dynamically and profitably in all business matters. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and the Cloud fit perfectly together. The Cloud makes you and your business mobile – Mindbreeze makes itself at home in the Cloud.
Read more about the integrated solution that requires no installation at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, March 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Text Analytics Gurus Discuss the State of the Industry
March 19, 2012
Text Analytics News recently reported on an interview with Seth Grimes, the president of Alta Plana Corporation, and Tom H.C Anderson, managing partner of Odin Text- Anderson Analytics, in the article “Infinite Possibilities of Text Analytics.”
According to the article, in preparation for the 8th Annual Text Analytics Summit East in Boston, Text Analytics News reached out to these influential thinkers in the text mining field and asked them some questions regarding the state of the industry.
In response to a question regarding the changes in the approach of analysis software for unstructured data, Grimes said:
The big changes in text analytics are the embrace of and by Big Data, the development of ever-more sophisticated algorithms, and a shift in the way user invoke the technologies. Enterprises understand that a high proportion of Big Data is unstructured: Variety is one of Big Data’s three “Vs.” Text analytics providers know they have to meet challenges presented by the other two “Vs:” Volume and Velocity.
Stephen E Arnold, publisher of Beyond Search, will discuss the implications of “near term, throw forward” algorithms. Mr. Arnold will describe how injections of content can distort the outputs of certain analytic methods. At the fall 2011 conference, Mr. Arnold’s presentation provided a reminder that “objective” outputs may not be.
This is an interesting interview that would be worth checking out for those who are interested in attending the conference or just finding out a little more information about how content is analyzed. For registration information visit the Text Analytics website.
Jasmine Ashton, March 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Monty Program Releases Version of MariaDB
March 18, 2012
Attention, NoSQL fans.
Developers at Monty Program believe they’ve finally got the formula for their MariaDB project on the right track. In the article “MariaDB 5.3.5 Delivers Faster Subqueries” we get a better idea of its functional capabilities.
MariaDB 5.3.5 is the first stable release of the touted maria DB 5.3 relational database series. Developers focused on improved performance (of course) as well as improving querying capabilities and functionality. The developers now feel that the new query optimizer is ready for more widespread production uses.
They have finally made the realm of subqueries using the Maria software usable. Users can utilize semi-join subqueries to run IN subqueries using the join optimizer to select one of five execution strategies. A subquery map shows which queries and optimizations are being utilized in the different versions of the Maria software.
One core optimization, the Table Pullout, can replace sub-queries with a join where appropriate. If the sub-query is not a semi-join, MariaDB 5.3 falls back to other methods including extracting the results of the subquery into a temporary table, or the older IN-TO-EXISTS optimization, the only one to be carried forward to MariaDB 5.3. There is also a subquery cache to reduce the number of times already optimized subqueries are re-executed.
It’s a definite step in the right direction as far as data management is concerned. By being able to map your queries and create subqueries for more relevant material, your able to maximize the potential for your software and production capabilities. Good show.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Geospatial Intelligence: Autonomy and SharePoint
March 16, 2012
I must admit I don’t associate Hewlett Packard Autonomy with Microsoft. I know I should. Autonomy technology has been adding functionality to Microsoft SharePoint for years. I was reminded of Autonomy’s ability to “play well with others” when I read “Information Discovery Improves Search Capability for the Largest Database of Geospatial Intelligence.” If you are not involved in intelligence activities, you may not know what “geospatial intelligence” embraces. If you don’t know, I am not going to explain it to you.
The write up makes three points.
First, the use case described in the document performs what I call data fusion. For the azure chip crowd and the self appointed search experts, you can probably figure out that Autonomy technology is facilitating the integration of images, data, and other information. Without Autonomy, the merged outputs would not be possible.
Second, the use case makes clear that search is an essential component of information discovery. Everyone wants the outputs to tell the user what she or he needs to know. Won’t work. So outputs lead to search and search leads to more outputs. The use case explains that text and source data have to be “augmented”; specifically, entity extraction, categorization, geo-tagging, and reverse geo-tagging.
Third, the system handles open source and secure content in compliance with a Department of Defense metadata specification. If you like codes, here’s the one you need: DDMS 2.0.
Net net: Autonomy has some interesting capabilities for outfits who use Microsoft SharePoint.
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Give SharePoint a Solid Foundation with Mindbreeze
March 16, 2012
In “SharePoint Performance Troubleshooting,” Jason Himmelstein addresses the broad issue of improving performance issues in SharePoint. He points out that this can be a hard issue to confront as many end users may not adequately articulate the problem, such as ‘SharePoint feels slow’ or ‘uploads take a while.’ From an IT perspective, fixing such a problem isn’t easy without specific details.
But with user education a topic for another day, Himmelstein speaks to more general areas that IT can look at to “ensure that any bottlenecks users experience are not SharePoint-related.”
Himmelstein explains his approach:
When I initially sat down to start this article, I quickly realized that you can’t begin to troubleshoot performance issues until you have a sound baseline to start with. Otherwise, the likelihood of you figuring out what is going wrong in the environment is extremely low. With this in mind, I decided to tackle this topic from a bit of a different perspective, examining what forms the base of a solid and well-performing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 farm and working backward from there.
The author outlines some main areas. First on the list, Himmelstein says you’ll want to look at your Windows server hardware sizing and make sure the platform that supports SharePoint is sound. In terms of the SQL Server tier, Himmelstein suggests that is the one in which you’ll want to make your hardware investment. Web server load testing and other performance issue causes are also discussed in the lengthy article.
Himmelstein searches for that solid base in SharePoint. We agree a solid base is needed for optimum performance, but you may not find that with an out of the box SharePoint installation. A comprehensive third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze, can give your SharePoint system a solid foundation and extended capabilities.
Daniel Fallman points out:
. . . in Microsoft SharePoint only one facet of a company’s knowledge can be presented. The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise 2012 Winter Release puts an end to this shortcoming. It enables all information that is connected to Mindbreeze to be displayed in Microsoft SharePoint. This takes place smoothly via Web Parts.
Read more at www.mindbreeze.com.
Philip West, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google and Semantic Search
March 15, 2012
The Wall Street Journal certainly has a scoop if one has been ignoring Google’s actions over the last five or six years. For a traditional “real” news publication owned by News Corp., the newspaper knows how to generate what I call “faux excitement.” The for fee version of the Wall Street Journal story is at http://goo.gl/DnRrP although the link may go dead in a New York minute.
You will want to snag a copy of the dead tree edition of the March 15, 2012, newspaper. Turn to Section B1 and read “Google Gives Search a Refresh.” If you have don’t have an online subscription to Mr. Murdoch’s favorite newspaper, click here.
I found the write up bittersweet. An era has ended at the Google. Google is moving into the choppy waters of “smart” search. Others have been in the kayaks trying to navigate meaning for a long time. Perhaps the best known player is Autonomy, which is now the “baby tiger” at Hewlett Packard. Google wants to skip the baby tiger metaphor and jump to the semantic shark.
My research suggests that Google has been grinding away at semantic search for a while, at least a decade. There were signals about Google wanting to get beyond the “clever” linking method and the semantic techniques of Oingo (Applied Semantics) a decade ago. (Notice the word “semantics” in the company name?)
Then Google took a couple of steps forward when it landed the Transformics technologies and hired Dr. Ramanathan Guha. You can get the run down on Dr. Guha’s semantic leanings when you work through the hits for this query on Google: Ramanathan Guha semantic Web. No quotes required. Dr. Guha is the wizard behind the Programmable Search Engine, which I described in some length in Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator, published by the UK outfit Infonortics five years ago. The monograph may still be in print, and if you can snag a copy, you will see how Google’s wizard explains a system and method to populate “fact tables” and perform other feats of semantic legerdemain. The Wall Street Journal focuses on Google’s acquisition of Metaweb Technologies which is more along the lines of a a complementary content or fact generating system. Google has a tendency to “glue” technologies together, not toss the shark technologies out with the bathwater.
The write up is one of those fear-uncertainty-doubt maneuvers which technology companies enjoy. “Real” journalists are too savvy to fall for the shiny lures. The persistent reader will learn that there is no release date for the new Google search. This surprised me because I was sure I read and later heard that Google version 2.0 was Google Plus, not plain old search with some WolframAlpha.com like touches and Blekko nuances stirred in for enhanced flavor. I must admit I was confused about a news story written in the present tense which is really about some search advances which will arrive at an indeterminate time in the future, maybe tomorrow, maybe in September when the leaves turn.
The story suggests that Google is making changes because of Microsoft Bing, Apple’s voice search, or Facebook, which has no search service of much consequence. My hunch is that Google is making changes to search for one reason: ad revenue via traditional browser based search is softening. This is bad news for anyone dependent on online advertising revenue to pay for airplanes, Davos visits, and massive television and print advertising. Forget the competitors, Google has to do something that works to pump up margins and generate massive revenue. After more than a decade of trying to diversify its revenue, Google is under the gun. If Google’s magic touch were actually working, then the company should be rolling in dough from multiple revenue streams. Where is the payoff from appliances, enterprise sales, and me-too services which have essentially zero impact on companies like Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Google’s PR thrust to focus attention on how it will improve search comes too quickly after Google got “real” journalists to believe that Google 2.0 was the “social” services. Well, how has that worked out for Google? I wrote about James Whittaker’s explanation of “Why I Left Google”. If you haven’t read the Whittaker write up, click here. The passage I noted was:
I couldn’t even get my own teenage daughter to look at Google+ twice, “social isn’t a product,” she told me after I gave her a demo, “social is people and the people are on Facebook.” Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasn’t invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation. The fact that no one came to Google’s party became the elephant in the room.
Net net: Google has been in the semantic game a long time. Semantic technology is now in operation at Google, just as plumbing. Now Google wants to expose the pipes and drains.
The reason?
Semantic are hoped to give Google more hooks on which to hang advertising messages. Without something new, revenue growth at Google may degrade at a time when Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft continue to grow. The unthinkable? Nope, the reality.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Business Intelligence in Tweets?
March 15, 2012
Six-year old Twitter has lot of credibility when it comes to knowing what people want. The social-networking site is serving up around 350 million tweets a day and that number is constantly growing. For businesses, that number means real-time analytics and activity from potential and current customers.
Mike Brown, current director of corporate development at Twitter, recently spoke at the CITE Conference and commented that the company is “the ultimate business intelligence tool.” This is because of Twitter’s ability to give a peak into what customers and competitors are saying, and the company plans to get more innovative on tracking activity and providing data analytics—with plans for advanced GPS sensors and targeted proactive advertisements for users.
A recent Computer World article, “Twitter Exec Calls Tweets the ‘Ultimate Business Intelligence Tool,” provides more insight from Brown on the importance of using Twitter in the business environment. The article states:
‘One of my favorite Twitter accounts, …because he just joined recently, is Rupert Murdoch,’ Brown said. ‘Whether you subscribe to his politics or not, the guy tells it like he thinks it and you really get that sense when you read his tweets. ‘I think whether you’re a brand or a marketer or a small business owner, [you need] to talk with an authentic voice that feels like your own, [one] your customers know,’ he said. ‘Your customer’s BS meter is pretty good. Don’t hand off your Twitter to your PR agency or even an intern who’s going to be with your business for a short while.’
Interesting advice. So, is the “ultimate business intelligence tool” statement by Brown self-serving? Nah, we think not. The assumption is a simple, fair, and par for the course. Note that raw tweet data can now be bought from companies like DataSift and Gnip. Everyone is starting to recognize the impact of tweets.
Andrea Hayden, March 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Musings: If Apple Designed SharePoint
March 15, 2012
As an avid Apple user, I can appreciate the simplicity of design and ease of use that is the center of their product line. However, Apple designs products for consumers and Microsoft designs products for the corporate world, for producers. This makes Chris Poteet’s article, “What if Apple Designed SharePoint?” quite interesting, musing about the potential to combine the two perspectives.
Poteet outlines his objective:
This post contrasts the design philosophies and approaches that underpin both Apple and Microsoft. It is meant to be a conversation starter and not a way to flame either side. If it weren’t for SharePoint, I couldn’t afford all my (admittedly) over-priced Apple products. Let’s now consider the question of what SharePoint might look like if Apple designed the product.
Poteet’s article leaves the reader with the impression that SharePoint’s current focus on functionality could do with a bit of tempering toward the end of usability. But until SharePoint starts making those adjustments, the addition of a third-party solution to an existing infrastructure can improve the usability and efficiency of the SharePoint beast. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is one highly competitive solution worth a second look.
Be well informed – quickly and accurately. The data often lies distributed across numerous sources. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise gains each employee two weeks per through focused finding of data (IDC Studie). An invaluable competitive advantage in business as well as providing employee satisfaction.
Explore the features of Fabasoft Mindbreeze and see if it can bridge the gap between usability and functionality for your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Is Copyright Shifting Direction?
March 15, 2012
It is tough to search when content is not there. We have been alerted to the threat of censorship from lawmakers by conflicts over legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and TPP. We must not ignore a more insidious threat: that of direct dealings between copyright industries and Internet service providers at the behest of government; so warns TechDirt in “UK Government Pressuring Search Engines to Censor Results in Favor of Copyright Industries.”
Rather than laws that would have to be enforced through legal channels, the back-door “notification” system described in the article would submit blacklists to search engines. These lists would name sites accused of infringement, which would then be barred from search results. Any accusation could doom an entire site to obscurity, possibly without recourse. Whitelists of approved media services would also be provided and those sites artificially promoted within search results. Writer Glyn Moody asserts:
Absolute power over search engines’ results in these areas would be handed to industries that hardly have a good track record for adopting a proportionate approach to tackling unauthorized downloads. In particular, they are unlikely to lose much sleep over all the legitimate content that will become invisible when sites of borderline legality are removed from search engines’ results ‘just to be on the safe side.’ And there are no indications that there would be any oversight as to who goes on the lists, or any right of appeal — making it a purely extra-judicial punishment.
It seems that most search engines are balking at the proposed arrangement, for now at least. Moody notes that complying with white lists could be considered anti-competitive and get sites in trouble with the European Commission. Yes, that would be important. Perhaps it is a sign that the whole scheme is a bad idea? How will the legal spat between India, Google, and Facebook work out? Our view: not well.
Cynthia Murrell, March 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Linguamatics Releases New Cloud Based Text Mining Solution
March 15, 2012
Search appears to be a transparent technology but in reality it is not. With the mass amounts of unstructured information being released into cyberspace there is a growing need for solutions to sort it. Enter text mining.Text mining allows users to extract value from vast amounts of unstructured textual data.
Business Wire recently reported on the release of a new text mining platform by Linguamatics in the news release “Linguamatics Puts Big Data Mining on the Cloud.”
According to the release, in response to the industry trend to move software applications on to the cloud, Linguamatics has launched the first NLP-based, scalable text mining platform on the cloud.
The article states:
The new service builds on the successful launch by Linguamatics last year of I2E OnDemand, the Software-as-a-Service version of Linguamatics’ I2E text mining software. I2E OnDemand proved to be so popular with both small and large organizations, that I2E is now fully available as a managed services offering, with the same flexibility in choice of data resources as with the in-house, Enterprise version of I2E. Customers are thus able to benefit from best-of-breed text mining with minimum setup and maintenance costs.”
We are very excited about the possibilities of text mining on the cloud as well as Linguamatics’ ability to get its software up and running quickly.
Our view is that Linguamatics is an outfit worth monitoring.
Jasmine Ashton, March 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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