Microsoft Fast ESP Revealed
June 3, 2009
Need an enterprise search system? Have four months? Microsoft Fast Enterprise 360 is for you. You can read a case study of a lightning fast (no pun intended) search implementation in a new Microsoft Fast white paper called “Enterprise Search 360: Achieving a Single Search Platform across the Enterprise”. I had a bit of trouble locating the document but I am an addled goose and your, if my Web log usage analysis system is working, are a 40 something, proud, confident, and an expert in search. If you have a user name and password for ZDAsia, you can download it here. If you get a 404, shave the url, register, and search for “enterprise 360”. If you are persistent, you can snag this one page write up. Here are some keepers from this remarkable “white paper”:
- “National Instruments was quickly attracted to the FAST platform’s versatility, flexibility, and capability to expand. Inside four months the FAST Enterprise Search Platform solution was fully implemented by National Instruments’ team without the assistance and added cost of professional services personnel for the installation.” My thought, “Wow.”
- “FAST’s impact was apparent from the get-go.” My thought, “Wow again.”
- “When customers do seek out customer support, the FAST-supported online support request functionality gives application engineers vital information about the customers and their needs before the support conversation even begins.” My thought, “ESP. Extra sensory perception. I knew the meaning of the acronym and thought it meant enterprise search platform.“
I downloaded this document. Much food for thought and analysis.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
More Bing with 4.5 Cherries
June 3, 2009
I was trepedatious when I saw the headline “Microsoft Bing” with a link to PCMag.com. I used to labor in the Ziff vineyards, and I find the present Web only approach to the PC Magazine franchise somewhat unsettling. But I am an addled goose, and I put away my concerns and dived into a Bing review here garnished with 4.5 spheres. I rate by geese, but spheres with red ink are okay even though these look like bing cherries.
The full review includes a useful slide show. The writer summarizes some queries and then offered what I found a useful comment:
Bing’s most effective tool for bringing you info directly from the results page is its rollover page preview. Hovering the cursor to the right edge of any Web result brings up a small window containing text from the linked page. It can even find relevant deep links within that page. It’s great for getting a peek at pages that are relevant, and for helping avoid clicking through to pages that aren’t. When your mouse is anywhere on top of a result, a vertical rule shows up at its right edge to visually clue you that this preview is available. It’s one of those features that you quickly get used to and come to expect. I now find myself missing it on Google search results pages.
The review is a long one and covers interface, travel, maps, images, and some miscellaneous features such as news. I thought news was pretty important, but that’s my age interfering with my understanding.
Bottomline: the reviewer finds Bing useful. If you want a thorough walk through of the Microsoft system, this is the place to start.
My tests of features surfaced some annoyances which are not included in this write up. Perhaps I will jot them down, but I am not too wired into the Web search scene. I do know that Google enjoys a 60 to 70 percent market share. Microsoft has a more modest share. If PCMag.com’s view set fire to its readership, Bing might narrow the gap a bit.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
Socrata: Mash Up and Analytical Wonderland
June 2, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to the June 2, 2009, announcement about Socrata’s “social” public data sets. The company behind this collection of data sets is Socrata (formerly Blist), based in Seattle. You can read the company’s news release here. The news release said, “[Socrata is] a social network that aggregates public data from around the world in a single destination.” The news release stated:
Socrata.com enables anyone with a Web browser to find understandable and sortable datasets on a myriad of topics including healthcare, energy, retirement, education or the environment, just to name a few. Users can create customized views and filters of the data based on any criteria in the dataset such as state, zip code or income. Most importantly, these personalized views can then be saved and socialized through an entire social network, whether it be business colleagues, families or others supporting the same cause. As in other social networks, users can create profiles, post comments, rate content, and establish groups for sharing information privately.
When I looked at the service, I thought about Wolfram Alpha and a series of documents I read by Ramanathan Guha, now at Google. I will explore the service in more depth because it looks interesting. I wonder what vendors of data sets think about the sudden interest in this type of information.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
AOL 1.1, Not 2.0 Yet
June 2, 2009
CBSNews.com ran “AOL 2.0: Is There a Future as a Solo Act?” here. The headline carried the same type of numbering problem I noted with a Yahoo 2.0 article. The “new” AOL, like the “new” Yahoo, is not too far from its 1.0 roots in my opinion. Christopher Lochhead begged to differ, insisting on the 2.0 designation. He wrote:
AOL should become more than a portal or search engine. It needs to aggregate everything you and I use on the Web into one central place. The truth is that the Web is still too hard to use and it takes too long. If they were able to become a personalized, uber-portal that manages everything we do on the Web in one simple front-end, new users would flock to them. It appears that Google may be taking a stab at this with its new Wave communication offering. Creating a new user experience needs to be done in the context of the social computing revolution. AOL must find a way to combine social networking, user-generated content, email/messaging and traditional media content so that we are compelled to use their services.
There are other remarkable assertions in this CBS story. You can wade through them, but let me cut to the end of the chase when the fox is panting and ready for the taxidermist: AOL after changes will still be AOL. The addled goose believes that a remarkable turn of events will be needed. Technology, people, luck, money, and innovation must come together. Then I will agree to an AOL 1.5 designation.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
Google Search Appliance Gains Muscle
June 2, 2009
Update: June 3, 2009: Version 6.0 of the GSA software includes a SharePoint Web part.
Original story below:
If you looked at the line up of the Google Search Appliances on offer in February 2009, you probably noticed that the pricing discouraged organizations from indexing more than 30 million documents per appliance. To scale the system with the GB 7007s and GB 8008s cost millions.
Version 6.0 and a new GB 9009 were announced today. You can read Google’s own write up here. You can download a data sheet here. The features fall under the banner of universal search, but you will need a cheerful authorized reseller or partner to get the most from your GSA.
You can get some other information from several IDG publications, including:
Google today revealed that it has created a GSA on steroids to handle larger indexing jobs. The GB 8008 is no more. The new model is the GB 9009, and it is built on Dell’s PowerEdge R710 platform. Google is not into customer support, so the Dell crowd gets the honor of explaining what to do when a GB 9009 goes south.
The system consists of two components: one for content processing and one for storing the index. Until ArnoldIT.com can get up close and personal with one of these two part set ups, it is not clear what indexing and query processing changes may be necessary.
A PowerEdge in gray, wondering if it will be Googley.
We do know that Version 6.0 of the GSA software won’t run on low end or the older GB 8008s. This seems to suggest that an organization can mix and match the GB 7007s and the GB 8008s. If you haven’t been keeping up with the GSA software, Version 6.x gives system administrators more control over security, customization, and hit boosting. In the older versions of the software, Google decided its relevancy was exactly the relevancy the licensee needed. Period. There were some clunky Fast Search & Transfer type workarounds, but Version 6.0 makes the system’s controls a bit more flexible.
The PowerEdge R710 gussied up for the enterprise prom.
Autonomy, Endeca, and other companies were previously able to point out that Google’s enterprise solution was less configurable that other high end systems. That’s still true, but to a lesser degree. Keep in mind that the GSA is not a box of components that can be assembled like Legos. An appliance is designed to eliminate the expensive and time consuming set up, tuning, and customizing that some high end systems permit. The GB 9009 is a search toaster, bigger, faster, and more capable, but still a toaster.
Google’s distribution channel will be selling the two part set up in the morning. I don’t want to estimate the cost of the GB 9009. Google has a fuzzy wuzzy approach to some pricing, and it is better to wait until the authorized resellers close some deals for the gizmos and the “street price” becomes clearer. My hunch is that the Dell gear will up the cost. With GB 8008s coming out of the blocks at $659,000 for a 15 million GB 8008 with two years of support and about $300,000 for a fully supported hot back up GB 8008, the GB 9009 will be in the same ballpark.
What’s interesting to me is that these prices convert to about what a fully loaded enterprise search system license with customization can cost from one of the blue chip search vendors. Expensive to perform search, isn’t it. I wonder why the actual cost of industrial strength search is not included in the reports from the azure chip consulting firms or those who witlessly insist that “search is simple. Yes, a no brainer.”
I look for another upgrade early in 2010., At that time, the blue chip vendors will have to start sweating the fact that Googzilla is finally getting serious about the enterprise search market. One indication of the shift is that the GB 1001 is a goner and that the the new software won’t work with even numbered GSAs.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Successful Enterprise Search: The Guidebook
June 2, 2009
The reviews are coming in for the study by Martin White and me about enterpriser search. The publication is “Successful Enterprise Search Management”. The study brings together a method for implementing an enterprise search solution. The publisher is Galatea in the United Kingdom. You can find the reviews, information about the study, and a page of links to the reviews of the study. If you are involved in enterprise search, you may find the monograph useful. We take care to identify ways to gather information so that decisions about search can be based upon facts. We cover the entire process of planning, procuring, implementing, and enhancing a search system. We do mention some vendors, but the monograph is not a rehash of the unwieldy Enterprise Search Report nor is it as technically top heavy as my three analyses of Google’s mind boggling technology.
I had one copy which disappeared in a procurement team meeting. If you want a copy, you like me will have to pony up some cash to get this useful roadmap, guidebook, and search Baedeker. The monograph contains information not generally included in the breezy analyses of vendor-specific reviews and the fly overs of the industry that consulting firms generate for their paying customers.
One of the reviewers said:
“Martin White and Steve Arnold have created the authoritative guide for executives and business managers to understanding enterprise search from top to bottom. This book covers the players in detail, as well as emerging technologies that promise to improve the search experience in corporations in the coming years.”
Martin and I have made an effort to be clear, concise, and pragmatic. I wish I had had this monograph when I did my first project in the mid-1970s. I did not know then what I know now. You may be able to get a leg up on a what is a quite interesting and challenging application with our study.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Google Local and Yellow Pages
June 2, 2009
Updated: June 2, 2009, 5 pm Eastern
We still get two or three giant books with bright yellow covers. I remember thinking about the phrase “Let your fingers do the walking” each time I lug one of these 1,000 page publications to the recycle bin.
I read this morning Erick Schonfeld’s “Google Local Lures Small Businesses with Their Own Web Dashboard” here. Google upgraded its Local Business Center’s offerings. You can read about this publishing play in my Google: The Digital Gutenberg and participate in the service without a fee.
My thoughts:
- Google insists that it is not a publishing company. I accept that statement, but I note that the entries in the Local Business Center are, in my opinion, the new “yellow pages”
- Google pushes the job of populating its directory to owners like me. If you poke around zip code 40241, you may be able to locate the ArnoldIT.com “world headquarters”, impressive operation that. The result is that the editorial content is not much more than an incremental cost to Google, which is not always the case for a traditional directory publisher.
- The content in the Local service performs some useful services quite apart from making it easy to locate a pizza delivery company in Prospect, Kentucky. Think knowledge base and frequent updates.
The traditional directory folks may want to figure out how to ride the Google wave before it swamps their row boat filled with paper.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Google and Good Search Engine Optimization
June 2, 2009
I loathe search engine optimization wonks. I am on the fence about Google’s “Straight from Google: What You Need to Know” here. The title is ambiguous but the content is not. Think SEO the Google way. If you want to pump up your PageRank or goose (no pun intended) your site in a Google results list, this slide show is for you. After scanning the deck, I concluded that Google in a semi official way is trying to put some white lines on the information superhighway.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
Business Embraces Twitter. Shock and Awe
June 2, 2009
ReadWriteWeb.com posted a surprising bit of information on May 29, 2009. You will want to navigate here and read “Business People Say Twitter More Important than LinkedIn”. The addled goose found the information interesting. Mr. Kirkpatrick wrote:
A month-long poll conducted on business social network LinkedIn has uncovered some fascinating numbers concerning social media platforms and brand presence. The biggest surprise was that Twitter was deemed more important to brands than LinkedIn, and the poll was performed on LinkedIn.
The addled goose gets it. When this post is published, it’s Tweeted. The addled goose studiously ignores blandishments of LinkedIn. Too much malarkey and not enough thick, chunky substance.
Stephen Arnold, May 31, 2009
Free of AOL, Time Identifies the Future of Online
June 2, 2009
When you own an online loser, it’s tough for the organization to make bold statements about the future of online. Cast off the boat anchor and the writers are liberated. Check out this essay / report from Time here. The write up is called “10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business” by 24/7 Wall Street but it’s Time for this addled goose. The idea was to get a bright journalist to identify the ways in which Twitter.com would affect an American business. The fact that Twitter.com has a fail whale deters not essay Douglas McIntyre. The ten examples are not that surprising, and I will leave it to you to analyze them. What struck me is that if Twitter.com was the future and had such compelling applications, why didn’t America Online jump into this new search sector with both feet. It’s easier to write about the future than deliver it in my opinion. One thing is clear to me. Finding the ten items is an exercise in patience. Start here.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
