Machine Learning Resolves Enterprise Search
August 26, 2015
One of the main topics of discussion on Beyond Search is enterprise search. We always try to find the juicy details behind enterprise search’s development, groundbreaking endeavors, and problems that search experts need to be aware of. One thing we can all agree on is that enterprise search is full of problems. The question is will all of enterprise search’s problems ever be solved?
Ron Miller proposed a possible solution on TechTarget’s Search Content Management blog, “Will Machine Learning Revamp Enterprise Search Software?” Machine learning offers a bevy of solutions for many industries and what is very intriguing about the process is that we have yet to scratch the surface of its possible applications. Miller points out that machine learning should deliver more accurate and broader search results than the traditional search index.
Miller imagines this scenario:
“I think we’re going to see tools where the machine can automatically generate results, based on what the user is working on. The information could perhaps populate onto a split screen, suggesting additional information that could potentially be helpful for the user, and then apply machine learning to the user’s response.”
He suggests machine learning driven enterprise search will anticipate a user’s information need and even help shape their daily work routine. These are very feasible conjectures and machine learning has already shaped such industries as the medical field and engineering. The main item to ask is when will machine learning become inexpensive enough to implement in enterprise search?
Whitney Grace, August 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
What Might be Left Out of SharePoint 2016
August 25, 2015
When a new version of any major software is released, users get nervous as to whether their favorite features will continue to be supported or will be phased out. Deprecation is the process of phasing out certain components, and users are warily eyeing SharePoint Server 2016. Read all the details in the Search Content Management article, “Where Can We Expect Deprecation in SharePoint 2016?”
The article begins:
“New versions of Microsoft products always include a variety of additional tools and capabilities, but the flip side of updating software is that familiar features are retired or deprecated. We can expect some changes with SharePoint 2016.”
While Microsoft has yet to officially release the list of what will make the cut and what will be deprecated, they have made it known that InfoPath is being let go. To stay on top of future developments as they happen, stay tuned to ArnoldIT.com. Stephen E. Arnold has made a lifetime career out of all things search, and he lends his expertise to SharePoint on a dedicated feed. It is a great resource for SharePoint tips and tricks at a glance.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 25, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Attivio ReachesTop 100 Status
June 29, 2015
The Data Dexterity Company announced the brand new Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) 100 and according to Yahoo Finance, Attivio is now on the list: “Attivio Named By Database Trends Applications To Its Prestigious Top 100 List.”
“We are pleased to be recognized by Database Trends and Applications as one of the most important firms in the data space; it further validates the type of feedback that our customers provide on a daily basis,” said Stephen Baker, CEO of Attivio. “As firms continue to be more reliant on maximizing their data to drive business-critical insights, we expect to play a critical role in driving this type of business innovation.”
Attivio joins the ranks of other companies that have made huge innovations in the data industry; they include EMC, Amazon, IBM, and more. Attivio is an industry leader in enterprise systems with its intelligence search platform. Attivio’s search platform enables users to make immediate insights with data visibility. Attivio has a well-known client use that encompasses such names as National Instruments, Nexen, GE, UBS, and Qualcomm. The company believes that there are many innovations to be made from all types, not just the type that is easily found in a database. Attivio uses its search platform to uncover insights in unstructured data that would otherwise be missed by other enterprise search platforms.
We have been following Attivio for many years and by having its name added to DBTA 100 proves it can perform well and deliver useful results. Enterprise search continues to be an important factor for enterprise systems, though people are often forgetting that today. Attivio’s addition to the DBTA 100 stresses that not everyone has forgotten.
Whitney Grace, June 29, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Digital Reasoning a Self-Described Cognitive Computing Company
June 26, 2015
The article titled Spy Tools Come to the Cloud on Enterprise Tech shows how Amazon’s work with analytics companies on behalf of the government have realized platforms like “GovCloud”, with increased security. The presumed reason for such platforms being the gathering of intelligence and threat analysis on the big data scale. The article explains,
“The Digital Reasoning cognitive computing tool is designed to generate “knowledge graphs of connected objects” gleaned from structured and unstructured data. These “nodes” (profiles of persons or things of interest) and “edges” (the relationships between them) are graphed, “and then being able to take this and put it into time and space,” explained Bill DiPietro, vice president of product management at Digital Reasoning. The partners noted that the elastic computing capability… is allowing customers to bring together much larger datasets.”
For former CIA staff officer DiPietro it logically follows that bigger questions can be answered by the data with tools like the AWS GovCloud and subsequent Hadoop ecosystems. He cites the ability to quickly spotlight and identify someone on a watch list out of the haystack of people as the challenge set to overcome. They call it “cluster on demand,” the process that allows them to manage and bring together data.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 26, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
HP Sales Are Slow, But CEO Says Progress
June 24, 2015
According to Computer Weekly, “HP CEO Hails Business Split Progress Amid Downbeat Q2 Revenue Slumps.” HP’s Enterprise Service has the worst revenue reports for the quarter along with several more of its business units with a seven percent net loss. The Enterprise Service saw a sixteen percent loss.
Ironically, the company’s stock rose 1 percent, mostly due to HP expanding into China due to a new partnership with Tsinghua University. The joint venture will focus on developing HP’s H3C’s technology and its China-based server business, supposedly it will have huge implications on the Chinese technology market.
Another piece of news is that HP will split up:
“[CEO Meg ] Whitman also spoke in favour of the progress the company is making with its plans to separate into two publicly traded business entities: one comprised of its consumer PC and printing operations, and the other focused on enterprise hardware, software and services.
The past six months have reinforced Whitman’s conviction that this is the right path for the company to take, and the split is still on course to occur before the end of the firm’s financial year.”
The company wants to increase its revenue, but it needs to cut gross costs across the board. HP is confidant that it will work. Sales will continue to be slow for 2015, but they can still do investment banking things at HP.
Whitney Grace, June 24, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Upgraded Version of Kofax Kapow Released
June 11, 2015
The article on KapowTech titled Kofax Kapow 9.5 Adds Analytics and Simulation Capabilities discusses Kofax’s recent upgrade. The new version includes more graphic support, speedier robot design and testing, and the ability to easily share and synchronize projects. The article says,
“As a global leader in commercial intelligence for the energy, chemicals, metals and mining industries, we provide objective analysis and advice on assets, companies and markets, giving clients the insight they need to make better strategic decisions,” said Matthew Jennings, a Director Operations for Research at Wood Mackenzie. “The new analytics capabilities built into Kofax Kapow 9.5 will give our business analysts detailed, up-to-the-minute insight into how our web data integration processes are running.”
Dave Caldeira, Senior Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing for Kofax speaks to the importance of real-time management in order for users to keep on top of their projects. The article reports that the Kofax Kapow platform is the quickest way to work with enterprise applications that also routes the need for any coding. Most importantly, it provides the ability to use information that was previously useless. Kofax has more than 20,000 users that rely on the company for its aid in customer engagement.
With Lexmark in Kentucky, the crowd in Harrod’s Creek wishes the company success as it adjusts to its new owner.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 11, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
SharePoint Grasps for Relevancy in the Realm of Social
June 2, 2015
Ever since the rise of social platforms, SharePoint has attempted to keep up. While many users would say that these attempts were struggled behind the majority of social technology, Microsoft was making an effort to keep their enterprise heading in the social direction. The battle has been long and hard and Redmond Magazine gives the latest update in its article, “Microsoft Looks To Bring Social Back to SharePoint with Office Graph.”
The article describes how Microsoft is more or less stuck between a rock and a hard place in their game of social “keep-up”:
“Not that an enterprise-class team and document collaboration vendor should try to match the capabilities of what are, more often than not, a collection of unsecure, noncompliant, sometimes untested tools . . . But here’s the rub: if you don’t offer end users the tools they want, and make key features available on the mobile devices (and operating systems) they want to use, all of those security, auditing, compliance, and reporting standards will become irrelevant because people won’t use your platform.”
So Microsoft continues to battle for relevancy. Its latest move is Office Graph, and analysts are optimistic that this social layer may finally be a way for Microsoft to deliver on its promise of personalized and intelligent social solutions. To stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the social world of SharePoint, keep an eye on ArnoldIT.com, in particular his SharePoint feed. Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime leader in search and follower of SharePoint. His reporting offers a succinct insight into the developments that affect productivity and user experience.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 2, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Prepare To Update Your Cassandra
June 2, 2015
It is time for an update to Apache’s headlining, open source, enterprise search software! The San Diego Times let us know that “DataStax Enterprise 4.7 Released” and it has a slew of updates set to make open source search enthusiasts drool. DataStax is a company that built itself around the open source Apache Cassandra software. The company specializes in enterprise applications for search and analytics.
The newest release of DataStax Enterprise 4.7 includes several updates to improve a user’s enterprise experience:
“…includes a production-certified version of Cassandra 2.1, and it adds enhanced enterprise search, analytics, security, in-memory, and database monitoring capabilities. These include a new certified version of Apache Solr and Live Indexing, a new DSE feature that makes data immediately available for search by leveraging Cassandra’s native ability to run across multiple data centers.”
The update also includes DataStax’s OpCenter 5.2 for enhanced security and encryption. It can be used to store encryption keys on servers and to manage admin security.
The enhanced search capabilities are the real bragging points: fault-tolerant search operations-used to customize failed search responses, intelligent search query routing-queries are routed to the fastest machines in a cluster for the quickest response times, and extended search analytics-using Solr search syntax and Apache Spark research and analytics tasks can run simultaneously.
DataStax Enterprise 4.7 improves enterprise search applications. It will probably pull in users trying to improve their big data plans. Has DataStax considered how its enterprise platform could be used for the cloud or on mobile computing?
Whitney Grace, June 2, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Free Book from OpenText on Business in the Digital Age
May 27, 2015
This is interesting. OpenText advertises their free, downloadable book in a post titled, “Transform Your Business for a Digital-First World.” Our question is whether OpenText can transform their own business; it seems their financial results have been flat and generally drifting down of late. I suppose this is a do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do situation.
The book may be worth looking into, though, especially since it passes along words of wisdom from leaders within multiple organizations. The description states:
“Digital technology is changing the rules of business with the promise of increased opportunity and innovation. The very nature of business is more fluid, social, global, accelerated, risky, and competitive. By 2020, profitable organizations will use digital channels to discover new customers, enter new markets and tap new streams of revenue. Those that don’t make the shift could fall to the wayside. In Digital: Disrupt or Die, a multi-year blueprint for success in 2020, OpenText CEO Mark Barrenechea and Chairman of the Board Tom Jenkins explore the relationship between products, services and Enterprise Information Management (EIM).”
Launched in 1991, OpenText offers tools for enterprise information management, business process management, and customer experience management. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company maintains offices around the world.
Cynthia Murrell, May 27, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Cloud Adoption Is Like a Lead Balloon
May 8, 2015
According to Datamation’s article, “Deflating The Cloud BI Hype Balloon” the mad, widespread adoption of enterprise cloud computing is deflating like helium out of a balloon. While the metaphor is apt for any flash pan fad, it also should be remembered that Facebook and email were considered passing trends. It could be said that when their “newness” wore off they would sink faster than a lead balloon, if we want to continue with the balloon metaphor. If you are a fan of Mythbusters, however, you know that lead balloons, in fact, do float.
What the article and we are aiming here is that like the Mythbusters’ lead balloon, cloud adoption can be troublesome but it will work or float in the end. Datamation points out that the urgency for immediate adoption has faded as security risks and integration with proprietary systems become apparent.
Howard Dresner wrote a report called “Cloud Computing And Business Intelligence” that explain his observations on enterprise cloud demand. Dresner says that making legacy systems adaptable to the cloud will be a continuous challenge, but he stresses that some data does not belong in cloud, while some data needs to be floating about. The challenge is making the perfect hybrid system.
He makes the same apt observation about the lead balloon:
“Dresner, who was a Gartner fellow and has 34 years in the IT industry, takes a longer-term perspective about the integration challenges. “We have to solve the same problems we solved on premise,” he explains, and then adds that these problems “won’t persist forever in the enterprise, but they will take a while to solve.”
In other words, it takes time to assemble, but the lead balloon will keep floating around until the next big thing to replace the cloud. Maybe it will be direct data downloads into the head.
Whitney Grace, May 8, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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