Endeca and the McKinley Release
April 4, 2009
Information Today’s Paula Hane has approached search and climbed Mt. McKinley, at least journalistically. She provided an enthusiastic endorsement of Endeca’s most recent enterprise search release of the Endeca system here. She provided a good run down of Endeca’s new system, including a plug for “massive scalability” and Endeca’s tie up with the Financial Times for the Newssift service here. Endeca, along with Autonomy, is one of small number of search and content processing vendors with a high profile among system administrators and information technology professionals. Information
Now that’s a mountain. I see Mt. McKinley, and I think “really big”, challenging, and for an addled goose like me, daunting.
Today’s write up features quotes from search gurus and integrators. I did notice a couple of points that I found interesting:
- I was hoping to get some indication of the pre-deployment work required; for example, consulting, customizing, data tuning, etc. I did not see that information in the discussion. I was hoping that one of the search gurus would provide a bit more beef to complement the sizzle that was evident in their quoted remarks. I wonder why the zip and snap of this important part of a new system was not touched upon.
- I was fascinated by the reference to “massive scaling”. The data about the Financial Times suggests Google- or Aster Data-type capabilities, but details were not included. One of the thorns in most search and content processing systems is that any system can be made bigger and faster. The issue I have encountered is the cost of scaling. With data flows and user demands for more timely index refreshes, I wanted to know what is the reference plumbing. Any information on this topic would be helpful to me here in the pond filled with mine run off water.
- The inclusion of an ecommerce vendor as a source for a new enterprise search system caught me off guard. Endeca is pretty good ecommerce service. The thought that went through my mind was, “Maybe this Michael Gabriel is an enterprise search and content processing guru as well as an ecommerce integrator with deep multiprocessor experience?” Last time I checked the New York Times’s system it worked, but it was a massive hassle. I’m a subscriber to the dead tree version of the paper and the Web site seems to be content to follow, not lead.
You can get more information from Endeca here. I am sure one of the trophy generation consultants will be able to provide the type of detail that an old goose such as I want to know. Getting hard data about the time required to deploy, ratio of consulting fees to license fees, and the on going scaling methods will take some extra digging. My beak is tired. If you have some of this information about the new Endeca release, use the comments section to share. I will learn, and I bet you one tasty water bug that Autonomy wants to know the facts about McKinley to figure out if that competitor needs to pack more pitons and crampons.
Stephen Arnold, April 3, 2009
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