Nuxeo and the Google Search Appliance
April 28, 2011
I saw a brief news item about the integration of the open source content management system with the Google Search Appliance. Nuxeo already hooks into Lotus Notes and a number of other enterprise applications. The cheery “Great News…Nuxeo Integration with Google Search Appliance” points out:
Nuxeo’s recently announced Google Search Appliance (GSA) connector is an important component for any enterprise indexing and search strategy. Nuxeo content is actively indexed and can be searched using the familiar Google search page. Of course, to access Nuxeo content you still to login and you must have appropriate rights. And because the Nuxeo connector is open source, it can always be customized to meet your specific requirements!
My reaction to this announcement was a question about the cost of scaling a GSA search solution. I covered some of Google’s publicly posted pricing data for its GB 7007 and GB 9009 devices. The article appeared in ETM, a publication of ISIGlobal.com. (This was a for fee column, so you will have to chase down the hard copy of the publication or contact ISIGlobal.com.) I had a couple of comments about the cost of the GSA, particularly when an organization has to upgrade to handle tens of millions of documents.
My reaction is that organizations considering the GSA will want to make certain about the document count and then get written price quotations for the appropriate GSA AND the cost of scaling that Google Search Appliance as the volume of content increases.
The savings from an open source CMS could be consumed by a GSA upgrade unless the licensee does his or her homework.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2011
Freebie unlike the GSA
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8 Responses to “Nuxeo and the Google Search Appliance”
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Your point about GSA costs is well made – it seems odd to go with the advantages of an open source CMS and then spend on a closed source search engine, when there are credible open source alternatives.
It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to modify the Nuxeo connector to hook up to an open source engine such as Solr….similar to how Lucid Imagination are using the GSA connectors for Sharepoint.
mmm In many situations the implementation of an open source CMS doesn’t save much money. The costs of development and customization are often equal to the license costs of a “closed source” but “out-of-the-box” working solution.
It al depends on the specific environment and requirements.
This said, your remark about the very high cost of a milion docs GSA setup are true.
In fact, the Nuxeo GSA Connector is used by a Nuxeo client who happens to use GSA for their enterprise search. Cost wasn’t the issue in choosing Nuxeo & open source ECM – the quality of the technology was the deciding factor. They needed a modular, flexible, customizable content management platform to build their solution. Nuxeo happened to be the best fit.
Thanks for the point on GSA costs Stefen. That’s definitely an aspect to consider.
Side note on Nuxeo to reply to Charlie: definitely, connectors to other Enterprise Search are doable, and some are already done. We hope to share soon some of our work on Lucene/SolR, but also other commercial solutions. At Nuxeo, we value integration capabilities, doesn’t mean exclusivity and our intention is to cover the most interesting players in this field, Open Source or not (and btw thanks Google for sharing a part of the connector software architecture as open source software).
@Edwin: Open Source is certainly not about “free beers” as we all know. To run an open source solution in a professional manner, you will still need Support and Maintenance and potentially additional services and tools that cost. TCO is still significantly lower in my opinion, but more than that, you raise “more heavy development and customization costs” and in that area, the ECM world, I disagree with you. I invite you to check out the size of projects done with large traditional ECM suites…
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