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The Search & Information Access Report looks at... Google Appliance

"Even Google's marketing won't go so far as to call their implementation "enterprise-class security," instead favoring to highlight single sign-on (which the Appliance supports quite well). Document-level security is handled late-binding - the result sets are filtered for hits a searcher is allowed to see, which requires the system to fire off separate requests for each hit to see if it may be displayed. This has only one advantage - the authorization will be up-to-date to the second - but, certainly in Google's implementation, several drawbacks. "

(p. 248)

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TrendWatch Blog

Not tuning the Google Search Appliance

01-Jun-2006   --  

As Enterprise Search Report readers know, one of the drawbacks of Google's search appliance is that it cannot be "tuned" the way you can with most enterprise search products. Now along comes a Google to say, in effect: "not a bug, but a feature." First, kudos to the Google enterprise team for sharing their thinking about their product (Know any Autonomy bloggers? Me neither.), and for constantly emphasizing the primacy of usability. But I have to disagree with the main thrust of Google's post. Yes, tuning is a pain, but so is creating (and maintaining!) "best bets" -- what Google calls "Keymatches" -- their suggested alternative to tuning. Many contemporary search systems have simple, web-based tuning interfaces so that adjustments become a matter of configuration, rather than scripting. If everybody's information was the same, search would be easy. But everybody's information is different, so tuning (and yes, re-tuning when new repositories come online) becomes important. Google's assertion that their algorithms' inherent superiority obviates the need to expose their black box is patently wrong. The fact is, all search systems offer a brew of different algorithms that work better or worse in combination against different sets of heterogeneous enterprise data. It's impossible to know a priori how well one system will work with your collections until you test it -- and then tune it. Like much in life, searchers don't know "good" results until they see them. In search, simple is hard. Simple in the enterprise takes hard work. Test and re-test before you buy.

- Submitted by: Tony Byrne, Analyst - Twitter: TonyByrne

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