As you have heard in Fortune’s article Google Search Appliance (GSA) May Be Gone But Category Lives On, not only is Google sunsetting thus leaving customer looking for a  GSA replacement customers confused, but choosing the next solution is even more cumbersome.  Below are just a few of the criteria to consider when making a decision.

Content Reach

An enterprise search system is only as useful as the content it can ingest.   Albeit outdated, Google created a pretty good open source connector framework for the Google Search Appliance to do just that.  To replace or enhance your new search engine you need to ensure you can connect to the same systems, databases, etc.  If you want to truly be able to have a sustainable and scalable system you need connectors that are available for content ingestion, federation and harvesting of public and private data sources.  This includes structured or unstructured data in any format, across any location, including enterprise applications, social media, etc.  Yippy has the largest connector framework in the world on board our appliance, so you never have to use a third party during the deployment process.  This saves time and money.

Technology

Google Search Appliance was a well-known solution that gave users a similar experience as internet search.   However it’s well-known they didn’t prove to be best of breed for enterprise search capablities.  Finding a GSA replacement that is a true unifying element for the enterprise is the future.  A product must have flexiblity in visual configurations with allowances to include many parameters including  data shaping, word proximity, synonyms, source, link analysis, and freshness are key elements. These items coupled with superior analytics, concept clustering, sentiment analysis, and natural language processing should be a must for an enterprise solution to truly unify an organization.  Yippy provides abilites that no other engine can offer.

Security

A defining difference between all enterprise search companies is security.  With all of the problems today with corporate information being hacked, security is a top priority for all enterprises when choosing a solution.  For enterprise search, fast, flexible and reliable access control layers are an essential requirement.  This will include active directory, LDAP and custom ACLs integration that provides single sign on (SSO) and early binding document and field level security. This insures that only the documents a user or group has permission to access will be available, which Yippy provides in sub-second response times.

Support

Google provided limited support and most customers had to engage third parties to maintain the GSA solution.  The same exists with most of the open source providers today.   This can add expense to the total cost of ownership and create a learning curve for over-worked IT group.  Yippy’s solution is truly a plug and play installation, and we provide 100% support for  the appliance out of the box.   About 90% of our clients utilize us as a “search as a service” and post set-up to production we are there to help maintain the solution in house without thrid parties. For this reason a solution that provides superior service and support is not only one less headache but lowers the internal demands on staff.

 

These are just the top items of many items to consider when making a decision on what to for in a Google Search Appliance alternative.  Find out what other companies are doing for a Google Search Appliance Replacement.

Google Search Appliance Transition Tools

Google Search Appliance Alternative Frequently Asked Questions

Do a POC of a Google Search Appliance Replacement