Benefits of migrating from Google Mini to Google Search Appliance (GSA)

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1 Benefits of migrating from Google Mini to Google Search Appliance (GSA) An Extended Content Solutions white paper, 2012

2 Google Search Appliance (GSA) The GSA is a leading enterprise search solution that offers built-in flexibility, a straightforward deployment architecture, and automatically tuned hardware/software. It contains powerful IT tools around content ingest, security rules, and administration, and integrates with common enterprise applications and major security protocols. Benefits of the GSA Higher capacity index, up to 10 million docs for one appliance. Free connectors available for SharePoint, Documentum, File Systems and most Databases. Advanced security techniques: SSO, Kerberos and SAML Dynamic navigation capabilities Advanced result biasing Mirroring capabilities for high availability Easily scalable for increased index capacity Google has recently streamlined its business processes within the enterprise search space in order to concentrate on one product, the Google Search Appliance (GSA). This means that the Google Mini has now been discontinued. Official Google support of the Mini will continue until the end of existing contracts, however once expired, it will not be renewed, and at that point it will become an un-supported product. Existing customers are advised to start thinking about migrating to a GSA. This white paper will describe what the GSA can do for your business and the best way to move to the GSA the GSA is designed to support all types of company from small businesses to those requiring complete enterprise solutions. Once a GSA has been placed within your business you can start to fully realise its potential and expand its search tentacles to parts of the company that the Mini could not. Why migrate? The great thing about the GSA is that it will continue to perform all the tasks that the Mini used to do but it also has a vast array of features that will help your business look beyond just providing a plain website search engine. Also, software updates for the Mini have slowed over the last few years, whereas the GSA still constantly receives the latest innovations which trickle down from the engineers behind google.com. Some of these new features can really help businesses maximize their return on investment whilst helping users find content quickly and easily. Connectors The GSA can index almost any system or repository available today. It sports onboard connectors that require very little administration in order to search content from databases, SharePoint and file systems. When indexing content it maintains the security information and caches file permissions to increase the speed of searching secured content. There are also many free off board connectors that can be used to index content from repositories such as Documentum and Lotus Notes. If a connector isn t provided for free by Google you can buy other connectors from the enterprise connector 2

3 ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Google Mini is discontinued by Google and support will cease. The migration package offered by ECS is fully endorsed by Google. The GSA software is regularly updated, for free, and benefits from features taken directly from google.com marketplace. If one does not exist for the repository you wish to crawl then you can utilise the open source connector framework extend the GSA to crawl almost any repository. Security The GSA has an extremely robust security feature set when compared to the Mini. On top of all the methods you were used to with the Mini such as basic HTTP security it also has Enterprise Single Sign-On functionality which provides users with a seamless system to work with when searching across secure content. Native support for Kerberos is also provided so that you can leverage the benefits of silent authentication with various content systems. If that wasn t enough, support for SAML Authorization techniques allows the GSA to integrate easily with almost any existing security mechanism. Entity Recognition (7.0) Entity Recognition now exists within the GSA. This sophisticated feature allows you to use existing, or upload custom, taxonomy lists which are then used to examine the content of documents as it is being indexed thus enriching it with additional metadata. This provides the GSA with automatic content classification abilities which, when coupled with dynamic navigation, gives users powerful tools to find the content they really want. Dynamic Navigation Dynamic navigation is a great way to drill down into search results and really allow users to find what they need. It provides faceted navigation panels grouped by category. Users can select one or more attributes to filter the search results for example by price ranges or content types, in order to quickly isolate the exact content they are searching for. The number of results per facet is clearly indicated, and searching within the facet is also possible to find a particular sub-category. 3

4 Document Preview (7.0) In the latest software update of the GSA a popular feature from google.com has been brought across. By hovering over a result a visual preview of that result is displayed. Within the preview certain parts will appear highlighted in order to help you see where your query appears on that page. This means that users no longer have to click through to a document to see if it is the right one they are looking for, they can buzz through a list of search results until they see the exact document they want. Migration process ECS offers a unique migration package to make the transition as easy and hassle free as possible in a timely and professional manner. We are at the forefront of GSA and Mini technology, and being an official Google Partner, we have been fully trained in their advanced migration techniques and have full support from their enterprise search team. Before the migration commences we can also help you identify areas within your business that will benefit from the advanced functionality of the GSA. Having worked in the content management space for over 10 years, with many high profile successful projects, it has given us incredible insight into how small to large businesses operate. Our migration package consists of an in depth analysis of your current utilisation of the Mini. We will carefully migrate all Mini configuration settings including frontends, crawl URLs and security settings. Currently there is no way to migrate the index to the GSA, however with the increased ingestion rates of the GSA the content can typically be re-indexed in just a few hours.. All of this can take place while the Mini is still serving current responsibilities and once the index ready on the GSA we perform the seamless switch over to the new appliance. This means that there is little or no downtime for the search functionality. In addition to the migration of all existing configuration settings, we will also implement the new features that were identified during our analysis stage. This is key to project success and business adoption as the benefits will be instantly apparent. We will also provide additional health checks post migration in order to fine tune the search appliance to provide the most accurate results and to identify any further areas of improvement. 4

5 Summary The Google Mini is coming to the end of its shelf life and current support contracts will not be renewed once expired. This may leave your business with an unsupported search solution. Now is the ideal opportunity to consider migrating to the GSA and take full advantage of its enterprise capabilities. The GSA s features and functionality far outweigh those of the Mini and therefore make it an ideal candidate for full scale enterprise search. With increased index capacity, robust connectors, advanced security features and regular innovative free updates it can reach areas of the business that were previously inaccessible by the Mini. ECS is able to offer an exclusive migration package that will not only allow businesses to regain support, but will help guide them through the whole process. In addition, we will make informed recommendations provided by our experienced technical implementation team. About Extended Content Solutions Extended Content Solutions (ECS) is an expert software solutions and services provider specialising in Enterprise Search Solutions and Content Management (ECM). We believe our in-depth knowledge of the ECM space enables us to transform our clients businesses to make the most of their content. ECS has a proven reputation for delivering excellence. With a dedicated and experienced team committed to innovation and quality, long standing partnerships with leading ECM platform vendors, EMC and Oracle, and a philosophy of maximising customer satisfaction we are well placed to meet our clients needs. Contact Us Find out more about how we can help you. +44 (0) info@extended-content.com 5