MarkLogic Tames Big Data
November 20, 2009
I spent several hours on November 18, 2009, at the MarkLogic client conference held in Washington, DC on November 18, 2009. I was expecting another long day of me-too presentations. What a surprise! The conference attracted about 250 people and featured presentations by a number of MarkLogic customers and engineers. There were several points that struck me:
First, unlike the old-fashioned trade show, this program was a combination of briefings, audience interaction, and informal conversations fueled by genuine enthusiasm. Much of that interest came from the people who had used the MarkLogic platform to deliver solutions in very different big data situations. Booz, Allen & Hamilton was particularly enthusiastic. As a former laborer in the BAH knowledge factory, the enthusiasm originates in one place—the client. BAH professionals are upbeat * only * when the firm’s customers are happy. BAH described using the MarkLogic platform as a way to solve a number of different client problems.
MarkLogic’s platform applied to an email use case caught the attention of audiences involved in certain types of investigative and data forensics work.Shown is the default interface which can be customized to the licensee’s requirements.
Second, those in the audience were upfront about their need to find solutions to big data problems—scale, analytics, performance. I assumed that those representing government entities would be looking for ways to respond to President Obama’s mandates. There was an undercurrent of responding to the Administration, but the imperative was the realization that tools like relational databases were not delivering solutions. Some in the audience, based on my observations, were actively looking for new ways to manipulate data. In my view, the MarkLogic system had blipped the radar in some government information technology shops, and the people with problems showed up to learn.
Perfect Search Appliance Handles One Billion Records
November 19, 2009
My RSS reader delivered a news item in which a breakthrough content processing appliance was described with a quotation from ArnoldIT.com’s founder. Here’s the news story:
Perfect Search Corporation announced on November 19, 2009, at KMWorld’s Enterprise Search Summit West conference the release of their One Box Extender Model OBX-1B, with the capacity of indexing and searching over 1 billion database records. “The Perfect Search OBX series is built to interface with the Google Search Appliance,” explains Del Satterthwaite, Director of Sales Engineering. “By tying into Google’s One Box API, we allow the corporate user to experience the same great Google search experience which is now expanded by our OBX search appliance to access content within massive databases.” By being able to index and search over one billion database records, Perfect Search provides companies the ability to cost-effectively search content stored within their databases. The Perfect Search OBX-1B model connects to Oracle, Microsoft SQL, MySQL, and other JDBC compliant databases. “Petascale data flows are becoming a business reality. Search and content processing systems able to handle massive data in a cost-effective, efficient manner are not widely available. Perfect Search’s technology can process large volumes of data quickly using commodity hardware. The company’s technology breaks new ground in search,” said Stephen E. Arnold, analyst and author of the original Enterprise Search Report and several studies of Google’s technology. “Just as Google dominates the Internet search space, over the past few years Google has also become the leader in the Enterprise Search space. We are excited to expand the benefits of Google search, which are easy of use, speed, and relevance, to the world of massive databases,” stated Tim Stay, CEO of Perfect Search. “Not only can we search one database, we can federate our search across multiple databases, as well as find data within any field within the database, including text fields and return the results within the Google search results format and styling.”
A tip of the hat to Perfect Search from the ArnoldIT.com team. The boss—Stephen E. Arnold — is out of the office today but he would want me to emit a “happy quack” for this reference.
Donald Anderson, November 19, 2009
I am supposed to tell whether I was paid to write this article. Since the boss pays me, therefore, this was a for fee article, but I am not paid enough.
Internet for the Data Archaeologist
November 19, 2009
SixRevisions published “The History of the Internet in a Nutshell.” When i write certain documents, I find myself wanting to trot out an old chestnut. This write up is useful because it provides some basic facts and includes a number of useful images. I have downloaded the document. You may want to be like an info squirrel too.
Stephen Arnold, September 19, 2009
I disclose to the Department of Fish & Wildlife that I was not paid in walnuts, chestnuts, or any other type of fungible for this pithy write up.
Autodesk and Sketchup
November 19, 2009
When I do run throughs of some of the old familiar Google services, I find that many in my audience don’t know that these “old familiar” Google services even exist. In 2004 for my The Google Legacy monograph, I created a list of Google products and services. That was a tough job and now I rely on younger eyes and minds. One of the products I noticed when I updated my list after The Google Legacy came out in mid 2005 was Sketchup. When I first looked at the product, I thought, “Autodesk killer.” I know there are upscale architectural and engineering design programs, but Autocad is one of those tools learned by students and then used for everything from complex line art by technically adept designers to smashcut prototyping firms in Taiwan’s suburbs. If you are not familiar with Sketchup, start your exploration here. When I read “Autodesk Falls after Forecast”, [this Yahoo link may be dead in a heartbeat], I looked for some references to the Google impact on Autodesk. Maybe Autodesk is a bit like SAP; that is, a company sturggling to dogpaddle to avoid a bigger problem. None of the pundits mentioned Sketchup, although my hunt was abbreviated by a pesky steward telling me to turn off my tiny computer. My addled goose mind thinks that this topic warrants some investigation. If the Google is impinging on Autodesk, perhaps that will foreshadow Google’s impact on other market sectors still blissfully unaware that Googzilla’s shadow may fall across their markets?
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2009
I wish to disclose to NASA that any umbra referenced in this write up involved no payment, not even shadow money from certain contractors to the governments of the world.
For-Fee Content Dreams Meet Common Sense
November 19, 2009
I highly recommend “Paying for Online News.” The article looks at some data in the New York Times, does some reasoning about demographics, and reaches a conclusion that resonates with my experience. For me, the key point in the write up was:
Consumer[s], however are not willing to pay for news that is freely available all over the Internet. The consumers that are most willing to pay for their news are those that are already paying for newspaper. I suspect that this is an older and increasingly smaller audience. Even if consumer are willing to pay for their subscription, they are not willing to pay enough to make up for the lost of advertisement that newspapers have been dealing with. A pay wall might slow the decline but it will not stop it. The only way that newspapers can survive is to adapt to the new world, the old model is no longer viable and to try to save it is doom to fail.
There are some workarounds. The problem is that some will take time and others will cost a lot of money. That puts pay for news plans behind the eight ball.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2009
I wish to disclose to the Vocational and Adult Education agency, which is involved in such things as making billiard tables and billiard balls that I was not paid to write this short article.
Microsoft and the Cloud Burger: Have It Your Way
November 19, 2009
I am in lovely and organized Washington, DC, courtesy of MarKLogic. The MarkLogic events pull hundreds of people, so I go where the action is. Some of the search experts are at a search centric show, but search is a bit yesterday in my opinion. There’s a different content processing future and I want to be prowling that busy boulevard, not sitting alone on a bench in the autumn of a market sector.
The MarkLogic folks wanted me to poke my nose into its user meeting. That was a good experience. And now I am cooling my heels for a Beltway Bandit client. I have my watch and my wallet. With peace of mind, I thought I would catch up on my newsreader goodies.
I read with some surprise “Windows Server’s Plan to Move Customers Back Off the Cloud” in beta news. As I understand the news story, Microsoft wants its customers to use the cloud, the Azure service. Then when fancy strikes, the customer can license on premises software and populate big, hot, expensive to maintain servers in the licensee’s own data center. I find the “have it your own way” appealing. I was under the impression that the future was the cloud. If I understand this write up, the cloud is not really the future. The “future” is the approach to computing that has been here since I took my first computer programming class in 1963 or so.
I found this passage in the article interesting:
If you write your code for Windows Server AppFabric, it should run on Windows Azure,” said Ottaway, referring to the new mix-and-match composite applications system for the IIS platform. “What we are delivering in 2010 is a CTP [community technology preview] of AppFabric, called Windows Azure AppFabric, where you should be able to take the exact same code that you wrote for Windows Server AppFabric, and with zero or minimal refactoring, be able to put it up on Windows Azure and run it.” AppFabric for now appears to include a methodology for customers to rapidly deploy applications and services based on common components. But for many of these components, there will be analogs between the on-Earth and off-Earth versions, if you will, such that all or part of these apps may be translated between locales as necessary.
Note the “shoulds”. Also, there’s a “may be”. Great. What does this “have it your own way” mean for enterprise search?
First, I don’t think that the Fast ESP system is going to be as adept as either Blossom, Exalead, or Google at indexing and serving results from the cloud for enterprise customers. The leader in this segment is not Google. I would give the nod to Blossom and Exalead. There’s no “should” with these systems. Both deliver.
Second, the latency for a hybrid application when processing content is going to be an interesting challenge for those brave enough to tackle the job. I recall some issues with other vendors’ hybrid systems. In fact, these performance problems were among the reasons that these vendors are not exactly thriving today. Sorry, I cannot mention names. Use your imagination or sift through the articles I have written about long gone vendors.
Third, Microsoft is working from established code bases and added layers—wrappers, in my opinion—to these chunks of code that exist. That’s an issue for me because weird stuff can happen. Yesterday one Internet service provider told me that his shop was sticking with SQL Server 2000. “We have it under control”, he said. With new layers of code, I am not convinced that those building a cloud and on premises solution using SharePoint 2010 and the “new” Fast ESP search system are going to have stress free days.
In short, more Microsoft marketing messages sound like IBM’s marketing messages. Come to think of it hamburger chains have a similar problem. I think this play is jargon for finding ways to maximize revenues, not efficiencies for customers. When I go to a fast food chain, no matter what I order, the stuff tastes the same and delivers the same health benefits. And there’s a “solution accelerator.” I will have pickles with that. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2009
I hereby disclose to the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration that this missive was written whilst waiting for a client to summon me to talk about topics unrelated to this post. This means that the write up is a gift. Report it as such on your tax report and watch your diet.
Yahoo and Panic
November 19, 2009
ZDNet’s “Yahoo’s Dwindling Search Share: Time to Panic?” is a blend of business analysis and technology. Toss in Yahoo and there is an element of the carnival because Yahoo has put on quite a show for advertisers, customers, and stakeholders. ZDNet said:
Yahoo is in a dangerous limbo here. Yahoo’s search team is more likely to be focused on sending resumes than advancing the ball. Advertisers are holding out for the deal to close before picking sides and they’re likely to go to the alpha male in the Microhoo deal—Microsoft. And the biggest problem: Google isn’t standing still.
Spot on. I wonder if this analysis is coming too late for Yahoo? Let me answer my own question. “Yes.” Yahoo will be a case study in many MBA classes. “One day Terry Semel sat in his office and dreamed of making Yahoo into a media company…” You know how this business case unfolds. Business case studies are not news; they are in the rear view mirror of some folks.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2009
I disclose the the Securities and Exchange Commission that no one paid me to offer this comment. I may get a free lunch from another company today, but that outfit is mostly indifferent to the drama that is Yahoo.
Google Squeezes LexisNexis and Westlaw Hard
November 18, 2009
Google’s Uncle Sam service is arguably a more effective way to find information from various US government entities. I heard a couple of years ago that Google was indexing the content on various state servers. During that time, LexisNexis (a unit of Reed Elsevier) and Westlaw (a unit of Thomson Reuters) have continued with their for-fee content services without much significant change. The legal world has been hit hard by the economic downturn. Many well-heeled corporate clients have holes in their shoes. The law firms to these giants have been asked – nicely, of course – to reign in their spending. Law firms are complying and some are even trimming their staff and looking closely at the expense account of some partners.
Google announced on November 17, 2009, that Google Scholar will contain the full text of
legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar.
Bang. Just like that the worlds of the for-fee legal information services hear the shockwave of the Google hypersonic bombers buzzing their citadels.
I can hear the rationalizations now: “Our legal content contains footnotes and cross references to make legal research quick, easy, and trouble free.” Or “Google does not understand how to present complex legal information as well as we do.” Or “Lawyers cannot trust Google.”
These and other truisms may have some accuracy embedded in them, but the one big reality is that Google is indexing legal content. Furthermore, Google has some nifty algorithms that can and will add metadata to content so that the Google service will be “good enough.” For law firms struggling to pay their country club fees, Google’s service will be given a close look. My hunch is that the small law firms who cannot afford the fees assessed by the LexisNexis and Westlaw systems will use the Google system. Over time, Google’s approach will choke off much of the oxygen to the commercial legal firms. These outfits have to respond.
So, what are the options?
First, the smart legal publishers will want to figure out how to surf on Google. In my own experience, most of these executives will dismiss this idea, but I think some thinking about this approach is warranted. My videos at http://www.arnoldit.com/video might offer some ideas to legal publishers nervous about the Google’s legal content push.
Second, the firms on the fringe of legal information now have a way to access some information that can be used to enhance their existing content offerings. Google’s service delivers a Ford F 350 stuffed with information that is now accessible. Raw material in my opinion.
Finally, government agencies may just pump content directly into Google. This creates an opportunity for a different type of information service. Lateral thinking is useful for the companies in Washington, DC that recycle information for their constituencies. I see opportunities in this sector.
What is the financial outlook for the LexisNexis-type and Westlaw-type firms? Short term there won’t be much change. Over time, life gets tougher. I do quite a bit of work in online information, and I am not sure these outfits can adapt to the Google’s legal push. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 18, 2009
A quick report to the Department of Justice. I was not paid by anyone to write this opinion. You, gentle reader, have not paid me to read it. Seems fair.
How to Make Money with Google Introduction Video Now Available
November 18, 2009
Short honk: The introductory video to the “How to Make Money with Google” program is now available. You can access the four minute overview from the ArnoldIT.com Web site or navigate to http://www.arnoldit.com/video.
Stephen Arnold, November 18, 2009
Beating Windows Mobile to Death. Stop Already
November 18, 2009
Windows Mobile 6.5 keeps popping up in my mobile search RSS newsreader. Enough. I looked at Windows Mobile with each release. The system gets better with each version, but the folks at Apple pulled a leap frog trick. Android then went with the open source angle. With Apple and Google busy working to out gun one another, the Nokias, the RIMs, the Palms, and the Windows Mobiles of the world have been falling behind.
If you want a run down of why Windows Mobile is faced with a sticky wicket, read “How Microsoft Blew It with Windows Mobile.” For me the analysis is more significant than the fact that Microsoft is behind in a key market sector. Mr. Brian X. Chen wrote:
Leaks indicate Microsoft plans to incorporate iPhone-like touch gestures. Windows Mobile 7 is scheduled for a 2010 release.
That’s the story in a nutshell. Me-too is not enough. Windows Mobile has failed to play the leap frog game. As a result the company watches from the sidelines. Marketing assurances are no longer magnetic. The game is not over, but Microsoft must play leap frog. And what about mobile search? Same story.
Stephen Arnold, November 18, 2009
Dear National Park Service, I know one can play leap frog in these natural wonders. However, I must report that I was not paid to write about leap frog in this article.
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