The company's enterprise search hardware can now combine internal and external search indexes.

Thomas Claburn, Editor at Large, Enterprise Mobility

October 15, 2010

2 Min Read

Web content and corporate content are finally getting together.

Google on Monday plans to introduce a new version of its enterprise search hardware that aims to make the divide between public and private files less obvious to those searching for information in their workplace.

The company intends to release version 6.8 of its Google Search Appliance, a search server used by companies to index internal or Web-facing content.

The update, available for existing GSA customers as a download, introduces the ability to combine external and internal indexes, while retaining all the security controls for on-premises documents. Consumer users of Google know this as universal search, a single interface that combines search results from indexes of different types of media.

"The scope of an organization is not contained within the firewall anymore," said Rajat Mukherjee, group product manager for Google's enterprise search group, in a phone briefing.

Business information is everywhere, Mukherjee insists, so search systems need to reach across traditional boundaries.

A new GSA feature feature called Cloud Connect does just that. It aggregates relevant search results from the Web and Google Site Search, Google Docs and Google Sites, enterprise data repositories, and social content like Twitter, and makes it all available to GSA users through a single interface.

The GSA upgrade also brings a new service called People Search, which helps present people-oriented information in search results. Other new capabilities include Dynamic Navigation, which provides search result filtering, connectors to Sharepoint 2010 and LDAP data sources, and Active-Active Monitoring, a way to mirror data across servers for higher availability and redundancy.

Mukherjee says that Google's goal with People Search is to encourage collaboration.

In addition to helping people work together more effectively, Mukherjee says the GSA helps people save time. He cites a 2009 IDC study, "The Hidden Cost of Information Work," which suggests that knowledge workers waste 25% of their time on tasks that could be made quicker through better search capabilities.

About the Author(s)

Thomas Claburn

Editor at Large, Enterprise Mobility

Thomas Claburn has been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications such as New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and television, having earned a not particularly useful master's degree in film production. He wrote the original treatment for 3DO's Killing Time, a short story that appeared in On Spec, and the screenplay for an independent film called The Hanged Man, which he would later direct. He's the author of a science fiction novel, Reflecting Fires, and a sadly neglected blog, Lot 49. His iPhone game, Blocfall, is available through the iTunes App Store. His wife is a talented jazz singer; he does not sing, which is for the best.

Never Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.

You May Also Like


More Insights