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
Balancing Collaboration and Information Security in your SharePoint Environment
February 28, 2012
Collaboration technologies and sound security practices can sometimes be at odds. Some of these bad security habits are discussed in, “SharePoint Users Develop Insecure Habits.” The article highlights a Cryptzone study that discovered 92 percent of respondents understood that taking data out of SharePoint made it less secure; however, 30 percent were willing to take the risk stating they were “not bothered if it helps me get the job done.”
To better understand user thoughts about the security implications, the study also found:
When examining users’ handling of sensitive or confidential information, a defiant 45% of SharePoint users said that they disregard the security within SharePoint and copy sensitive or confidential documents from the collaboration tool to their local hard drive, USB device or even email it to a third party. The main reasons for copying documents from SharePoint were either to work from home (43%) or share it with third parties who don’t have access to the tool (over 55%).
Can effective collaboration and sound security coexist? The article touches on both the technological capabilities and the business policies and user behaviors, such as snooping or bypassing security measures to get on with their work, that play a role in the information security system. The survey highlights that this latter user behavior is the dominant. Ease of access can help curb these bad security habits.
To connect your users to the right information they need at the right time, consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze. With unparalleled data processing capabilities, Fabasoft Mindbreeze for Enterprise . . .
finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
Add in certified security with regular audits for security standards compliance, Mindbreeze connects users to their needed information without compromising information security.
Philip West, February 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Bearing with the Hassles of SharePoint
February 23, 2012
Forrester’s latest report on SharePoint 2010 remarks that the platform’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses, providing enough business value to overcome the hassles. Toby Ward comments on the Forrester report in, “If You Can Afford It, SharePoint May be Worth the Hassles.”
Ward disagrees, recommending each organization evaluate whether or not SharePoint is the right solution for their situation:
While the power and feature set of SP 2010 is undeniable, it turns out it is more expensive, more complicated and fails to live up to a number of key expectations. It is, however, a vast improvement over 2007, and is particularly more so for business users such as corporate communications, marketing and HR, who rely more heavily on enterprise content management, collaboration, and portal features.
In his pro/con list, Ward remarks that a major weak point of SharePoint 2010 is its mobile access problems on a variety of platforms. One solution that provides excellent mobile access is Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Read more about how their Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile solution compliments an existing enterprise infrastructure:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company data available on all mobile devices . . . You can act independently and freely – yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: the display of the search results is homogenous to the tried and tested web client in terms of clear design and intuitive navigation . . . Existing access rights to company-internal documents and data remain maintained in the view via the mobile client. The user only receives information for which he/she has access rights.
While some organizations may suffer through the idiosyncracies of SharePoint, there are third-party solutions that work with SharePoint to greatly improve the user experience. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a strong contender, and a great place to start if your organization wants to improve its enterprise usability.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 23, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Considerations in SharePoint Hosting
January 20, 2012
Finding an enterprise search solution that works for your organization is no longer just about securing the best solution, it now extends to securing the best hosting option as well. SharePoint is obviously the most widely implemented enterprise solution, but even after choosing a SharePoint installation, a decision must be made whether to host on-site or in the cloud. More and more customers are moving toward cloud hosting for reasons including security and access.
A blog entry, “SharePoint Cloud Hosting Explained,” emphasizes the need to secure an appropriate and smart cloud hosting solution:
When searching for Sharepoint Cloud hosting, companies should be sure that whatever hosting company they choose to work with, is willing to create a system that is tailored-made to their particular needs, if necessary. Some hosting companies will allow businesses to pay as they go or give them the option of purchasing a license. It will also be extremely important that all of a business’ data is stored on servers that are secure.
One third-party solution that has received accolades for its work in the cloud is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. While working as an alternative to SharePoint, or as a compliment to an existing SharePoint infrastructure, Mindbreeze is a smart enterprise solution that works seamlessly on the cloud. Read more on their “Search in the Cloud” page.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and the Cloud fit together perfectly. The Cloud makes your business mobile; Mindbreeze finds its way in the Cloud. This intelligent search is available as a Cloud service. This means that, if you so desire, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can run without any installation whatsoever – we operate the search engine for you. All the data that you manage in the Cloud is made searchable by Fabasoft Mindbreeze. This makes Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise the center of excellence for your knowledge in the Cloud too.
If you desire to cut down on installation and maintenance time and cost, hosting your enterprise solution on the cloud is worth looking into. Check out Fabasoft Mindbreeze and see if their solution and cloud hosting opportunities will work for your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
INTEGRITYOne Partners and SharePoint Team Up to Aid the FBI
July 16, 2011
I try to keep at least one tired eye on the competition within the US Federal government between Google and Microsoft. This PR Newswire lead caught our eye here at Beyond Search: “INTEGRITYOne Partners Win $40 Million FBI SharePoint Contract.”
INTEGRITYOne is a management and IT consulting firm that specialized in inspirational and creative ideas/solutions for high-performing clients. They announced a partnership with Applied Information Sciences (AIS) to win a five-year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide SharePoint services for the FBI. (IDIQ contracts are definitely good. Yep.)
INTEGRITYOne has provided SharePoint services for other law enforcement and national security organizations in the past, proving to have a strong track record. Their experience has made them familiar with the law enforcement mission and will be a boon to their new contract. We learned:
“The role the FBI plays in ensuring the safety of American citizens cannot be overstated,” said INTEGRITYOne Partners Managing Partner Michael Waddell. “We are honored to support their mission under this contract.”
After reading this brief, we asked ourselves will other law agencies dump Google and head to Microsoft SharePoint? SharePoint is easier to self-contain and secure. Google is just about anyone’s game. The FBI should may want to ask an appropriate vendor to check out SurfRay’s technology to make their SharePoint search all the more easier.
Torben Ellert, July 16, 2011
SurfRay
SharePoint Sharing from Attivio
January 19, 2011
Of interest to businesses overwhelmed with voluminous SharePoint content: “Attivio Announces AIE for SharePoint Integration” tells of the Active Intelligence Engine’s new availability to aggregate information across not only SharePoint, but also websites, databases, email, CRM and other information sources.
According to the announcement,
“The difficulty of discovering and delivering timely insight derived from all of these resources exposes gaps in an organization’s ability to integrate and rapidly update information; providing a single method for users to find the information they need, regardless of its origins. AIE for SharePoint Integration enables secure access to all types of information by unifying diverse datasets, while avoiding the cost and delays of cumbersome legacy integration stages. “
With AIE companies no longer have to worry about SharePoint silos, easily accessible only within departments and can instead maximize insight and collaboration across the entire enterprise. Attivio promises retention of data relationships from text sources, rapid implementation, and tight security to result in maximized competitive advantage. We believe the company has a good approach to a very tough SharePoint challenge.
Alice Wasielewski, January 19, 2011
Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 11g
July 2, 2010
I put off writing about Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 11g. From my point of view, the product has not leapfrogged other search systems. That includes commercial solutions or open source solutions. I wrote about the “problem” of hooking search to security. My opinion was that “secure” was possible when other Oracle servers were lashed into the search system. I may be wrong about “security” but until I get some first hand evidence that SES 11g does not require a bean counter crushing requirement for other Oracle goodies, I will keep my enthusiasm in check.
What’s New in SES 11g?
According to the what’s new page for SES 11g, licensees enjoy:
- Improved performance. Here’s the actual lingo and I think you can see why I have been reluctant to slap a “four goose” label on Oracle search systems in the past: “A quantum leap in performance and scalability for crawled and near real time search. SES 11g searches 10x more data with a single SES instance, at the same license cost, without impacting search query performance. It also offers fast ingest by defragmenting the search engine index mostly automatically; this allows for updating the search engine index fast enough to keep up with high churn applications like mail or news feeds”. I am not sure what a “quantum leap” is. I also like the idea that a single SES instance can handle “10x more data.” No baseline metrics are given and my tests of SES 10g are several years old. Lots of processor changes under the bridge. Am I to use Oracle Sun hardware? Again I don’t know what this means. I do know that pushing real time content through a system is a tough problem to solve without a lorry full of euros.
- Customization. As Oracle says, “A UI mechanism based on the popular Freemarker templating language that greatly simplifies customizations to the SES search application”. What’s a Freemarker? Think open source. Ah, that’s going to be interesting. Open source.
This is a fully customized interface. The screenshot comes from AT Kearney’s “knowledge portal.” Kearney is a blue chip consultant dogpaddling to remain in the top tier with McKinsey, Booz, Bain, and BCG.
- Connectors. Here’s what Oracle says, “New connectivity options to Oracle Applications (EBusiness Suite, Siebel), Web Center, and Fusion Middleware.” Yep, an option. How much are these connectors? Some folks provide them at reasonable prices or give them away as part of the base package. My hunch is that the lorry may need another bundle of euros. If anyone has Oracle connector pricing, please, post the links to the price list in the Comments section of this Web log.
- Filters. Oracle says, “New document filters, especially for MS Office 2007 and SUN Star Office.” I am not sure how I would differentiate a filter from a connector. Oracle owns an outfit that makes a bunch of these gizmos via its acquisition of Stellent which bought technology from the former Outside In years ago.
- More connectors but these now work. Oracle says, “Connector updates for Documentum, SharePoint, and NTFS.” Okay, seems repetitive to me and being able to handle the however many millions of SharePoint instances out in the wild seems like a pretty basic function in my opinion.
- Administrative interface. Oracle says, “A new Admin API with command line abilities.” Okay, command line. Even Google offers one. Back to the good old days of IBM. Good news for people like me who can remember command strings but not people.
- Authentication. Oracle says, “Windows Native Authentication, replacing the previous applet-based approach.” Huh? Most search systems, including the Google Search Appliance, pretty much use what the licensee has up and running. What about the “secure” part? What about the Oracle security server and supporting goodies? What about those government agencies and their hybrid systems which require much Cirque du Soleil acrobatics?
X1 Technologies Dives into the SharePoint Search Channel
May 29, 2008
X1 Technologies blipped my radar when a source in Mountain View, California, told me that Yahoo inked a deal with X1 for search. You can learn more about X1 and its patent search technology here. The company’s tagline is “a single interface for secure business search”. I’ve been pleased with my X1 search experiences, and in my discussion of X1 as an option for IBM systems, I identified its technology as one well worth a close look.
The Yahoo Connection
Troubled Yahoo–despite its lousy ad system, Panama–has some sharp search and information retrieval wizards. When a point solution for search is needed, these wizards can pinpoint a vendor who can provide a quick fix for a findability ailment. Yahoo, for example, licensed the InQuira system to power the company’s customer support system. You are getting natural language help from InQuira, not Yahoo’s own search system. When Google aced Yahoo with email search, Yahoo’s engineers poked around and licensed Stata Labs’ technology. Yahoo can identify good technology, but that’s now a core weakness. Instead of an integrated search platform, Yahoo uses the Baskin-Robbins’ approach–many different flavors. Some flavors change without warning. The X1 solution deployed by Yahoo in its toolbar offered some useful features; namely, fast indexing and on-the-fly document display.
I took a look at X1 Technologies and learned that its engine indexed quickly. I found the interface geared to an email user, not a dinosaur like me. All in all, I liked the performance and the ability to filter results. Over the years, I tested different versions of the system and concluded that it was worth a look, particularly if the user community wanted an Outlook-type interface and zippy indexing.
X1: Signing Up with MSFT
I learned on May 27, 2008, that X1 made the jump into the Microsoft channel and its fast-moving currents. As you know, a company can sync up with Microsoft, send an engineer to two to Microsoft’s training courses, and demonstrate that its software doesn’t foul up SharePoint or some other “core” Microsoft product. In my experience, third-party software is often more stable than Microsoft’s “core” technology. A “hot fix” can produce some exciting SharePoint moments in my experience. I also enjoy SQLServer back ups that appear to complete and then upon testing, demonstrate a less-the-charming ability to rebuild the data set. Sigh.
X1 offered a desktop search system, free from Yahoo at one time and a modest charge if you bought the commercial version of the product. Now the company offers its X1 Enterprise Search Suite. The technical dope is here. The features of this Microsoft-certified system include:
- Ability to search the contents of Microsoft servers, including Exchange and SharePoint servers
- Federated results; that is, obtaining documents from different servers and displaying a single results list with duplicates removed
- Support for Microsoft’s security model, Microsoft clustering, etc.
- Connectors for more than 400 file types, including the Symantec Enterprise Vault.
With more than 12,000 SharePoint licensees and a rumored 65 million users–a estimate which I doubt–of SharePoint search, X1 joins a number of other prominent enterprise search vendors as Certified Gold partners.
SharePoint Search: The Answers May Be Here and the Check Is in the Mail
May 1, 2008
A Microsoft wizard named Dan Blood, a senior tester working in the product group that is responsible for search within MOSS and MSS, says that he will use the Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog “to provide details on the lessons that we [his Microsoft unit] have learned.” The topics Mr. Blood, a senior tester working in the search product group, include (and I paraphrase):
- His actions to optimize MOSS and MSS
- Information about optimizing index refreshes; that is, make sure the 28 million documents in his test set are “freshly indexed”
- Configuration of the SQL machine that underpins MOSS and MSS
- Monitoring actions to make sure the search system is healthy.
MOSS and MSS
My hunch is that you may not know what MOSS and MSS mean. I’m no expert on things Microsoft, but let me provide my take on these search systems. MSS is an acronym for Microsoft Search Server. MOSS is an acronym for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. MSS originated as the search subsystem from within the more comprehensive MOSS system, given a smattering of improvements, then packaged as a separate service. Microsoft plans to eventually roll these improvements back into the MOSS line.
This image comes from http://sharepointsearch.com/images/searcharchitecture.gif. You can read another take on this product here.
Teams: Its Future Seems to Be Emulating the Feature-itis of MSFT Word
December 10, 2020
Someone asked me to test Zoom in 2016, maybe earlier. It was a lot more useful than Freeconference.com’s IBM video service which was available to me at the time. Zoom is getting more cluttered. I have to deal with automated calendar, endless updates, icon litter, and weird controls scattered across the Web site, the app for my Mac Mini, and the Web browser implementation. I can record and probably acquire a Zoom brain implant add in.
But Microsoft Teams makes Zoom’s accretion of wonkiness look very 16th century. I read “Features Added to Microsoft Teams in November 2020 Update.” My reaction was a question, “Has Microsoft discovered its next Microsoft Office?” (I was tempted to mention Microsoft Bob and Microsoft SharePoint, but I de-enthusiasmed myself.)
What’s Teams do? For starters, you can check out Microsoft’s explanation of “more ways to be a team.” Typical of thumbtypers’ marketing woo woo, Teams is linked to Microsoft 365. Okay, I get it a subscription and/or volume licensing with a dollop of lock in. Imagine. meet, chat, call, and collaborate in just one place. Also, one can:
- Instantly go from group chat to video call with the touch of a button.
- Securely connect, access, share, and coauthor files in real time.
- Stay organized by keeping notes, documents, and your calendar together.
However, Teams is an application environment too. The November 2020 write up points out:
Microsoft now made the new Power Apps app for Teams generally available. It allows you to create and deploy custom apps without leaving Teams. With the straightforward , embedded graphical app studio, it’s never been easier to create low code apps for Teams. you’ll also harness immediate value from inbuilt templates just like the Great Ideas or Inspections apps, which may be deployed in one click and customized easily. The new Power Apps app for Teams are often backed by a replacement relational datastore – Dataverse for Teams.
The “dataverse.” That’s similar to my term “datasphere,” but the datasphere exists and includes the dataverse in my opinion.
Yep, the “world” of Microsoft. What’s interesting is that Salesforce understands that Microsoft’s response to Zoom may be the start of a new bit thing. Even Amazon has joined the party with its mostly ignored Chime thing. (Amazon AWS provides the zoom for Zoom, so for now, the Bezos bulldozer is carving new revenue paths in other markets.) And Google is active in this sector as well, but for the life of me, I cannot recall the name of the conference/messaging service du jour. Google sells ads and will probably get serious when a US government Department of Energy conference call can be enhanced with an advertisement from Duke Energy or Exxon).
One thing is clear in my opinion: Microsoft Teams has the feature-itis affliction. I was at a Microsoft meeting years ago when one of the Softies pointed out that 95 percent of Word users relied on fewer than 10 functions.
What do I do when I use Zoom? Participate in a video call. If I need to take notes, I use a pencil and paper. If I need to add an event to my calendar, I write it in my monthly planner. If I want to zone out, I post a background that shows me looking at the camera and nodding.
Keep it simple? Not likely.
Stephen E Arnold, December 10, 2020
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