IBM: Another New Search System from Big Blue

September 27, 2008

IBM announced its eDiscovery Analyzer. You can read the IBM news release on the MarketWatch news release aggregation page here. Alternatively you can put up with the sluggish response of IBM.com and read the more details here. You won’t be able to locate this page using IBM.com’s search function. The eDiscovery Analyzer had not been indexed when I ran the query at 7 30 pm on September 27, 2008. I * was * able to locate the page using Google.com. If I were the IBM person running site search, I would shift to Google, which works.

The eDiscovery Analyzer, according to Big Blue:

… provides conceptual search and analysis of cases created by IBM eDiscovery Manager.

Translating: eDiscovery Manager assists with legal discovery, a formal investigation governed by court rules and conducted before
trial, and internal investigations on possible violations of company policies, by enabling users to search e-mail documents that
were archived from multiple mailboxes or Mail Journaling databases into a central repository. You license eDiscovery Manager, the bits and pieces needed to make it go and then you license the brand new eDiscovery Analyzer component.

I believe that this is the current interface for the “new” IBM eDiscovery Analyzer. Source: IBM’s Information Management Software IBM eDiscovery Analyzer 2.1 marketing collateral.

You will need FileNet, IBM’s aging content management system. The phrase I liked best in the IBM write up was, “[eDiscovery Analyzer] is easy to deploy and use, Web 2.0 based interface requires minimal user training.” I’m not sure about the easy to deploy assertion. And the system has to be easy to use because the intended users are attorneys. In my experience, which is limited, legal eagles are not too excited about complicated technology unless it boosts their billable hours. You can run your FileNet add in on AIX (think IBM servers) or Windows (think lots of servers).

You can read about IBM’s search and discovery technology here. You can tap into such “easy to deploy” systems as classification, content analysis, OmniFind search, and, if you are truly fortunate, DB2, IBM’s user friendly enterprise database management system. You might want to have a certified database administrator, an expert in SQL, and an IBM-trained optimization engineer on hand in case you run into problems with these user friendly systems. If these systems leave you with an appetite for more sophisticated functions, click here to learn about other IBM search and discovery products. You can, for example, read about four different versions of OmniFind and learn how to buy these products.

Remember: look for IBM products by searching Google. IBM.com’s search system won’t do the job. Of course, IBM’s enterprise eDiscovery Analyzer is a different animal, and I assume it works. By the way, when you try to download the user guide, you get to answer a question about the usefulness of the information * before * you have received the file. I conclude that IBM prefers users who are able to read documents without actually having the document.

Stephen Arnold, September 27, 2008

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under EDiscovery, News, Search, Technology, Text analytics, Text processing

Comments

One Response to “IBM: Another New Search System from Big Blue”

Martin Rueckert on February 9th, 2009 9:22 am

Hi,
as a comment to your article about “IBM Content Analyzer” (ex-OmniFind Analytics Edition): The search engine that is used on ibm.com is run by FAST.
Cheers
Martin

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.