
Google Enterprise Search - aburan28
http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/products/?utm_source=gdn&utm_medium=cpv&utm_campaign=northam-lcs-search-website-leads-youtube-us-en&utm_content=dinosuar
======
dm2
[https://www.google.com/about/company/history/#2002](https://www.google.com/about/company/history/#2002)

2002 - "The first Google product for enterprises is released: the Google
Search Appliance is a yellow box that businesses can plug into their computer
network to enable search capabilities for their own documents."

------
rsobers
I've been doing a lot of research on enterprise search products lately and one
of the biggest issues is security. Unleashing search on corporate systems
where permissions aren't managed really well is a big risk.

~~~
geerlingguy
For some of our systems, we use Alfresco and/or Drupal, both which have Apache
Solr as an easily-configurable search backend, and which works basically plug-
and-play with the respective systems' content permissions.

Using the free versions of all three (Solr + Drupal + Alfresco), search is
fast and access-controlled very easily.

I worked for a company that had a Google Search Appliance about 6 years ago,
and, like others have said, it basically sat in a rack somewhere and collected
dust once we started using some form of integrated search. The GSA was fast
and relatively easy to use, but required an expensive initial purchase +
ongoing licensing/update fees.

------
samirahmed
Apart from the fact that this isn't a new product. From a ranking and
relevance point of view, can the same (internet) search algorithms be reused
for internal (intranet) search? Often permissions, links and usage are not
reflective of the importance or reputation of a document like on the public
web. Often emails carry a bulk of the decision making material.

Not to downplay the importance of an enterprise search offering, but I don't
think Google just packages there standard search in a box nor do I think 1
single GSA box can solve enterprise search.

------
peterwwillis
We had one of these like a decade ago. I think it just sat in the DC
collecting dust. Really wanted to look inside but they weld the damn thing
shut and you have to ship it back to goog for maintenance.

~~~
eitally
They've historically (until this generation -- I haven't poked at our new
ones) used commodity Dell servers, along the lines of a 2U PowerEdge. While
they were welded shut, it was entirely possible to wipe them and reimage with
your own Linux install, provided you had a way to boot from USB. We did this
with all of the previous generations of appliances after they were replaced by
the new contract. They became perfectly serviceable test boxes.

------
skywhopper
This has been available for roughly a decade. They work well, and they can
certainly produce a lot better results than Google Site Search.

------
Shank
There are a few of these on eBay, I wonder what the pricing model is. Surely
Google doesn't like them just popping up, but I guess if you're out of your
agreement you can resell them?

~~~
runarb
I think you can’t use it as a search engine after the license expires, so thus
on ebay are just useful as a server you can install something else on.

------
jmp8
Please take a look at
[https://www.mindbreeze.com/](https://www.mindbreeze.com/). We offer solutions
for site search (hosted yet produced for the concrete site and therefore
highly customizable) as well as enterprise search. See also some examples
[https://insite.mindbreeze.com/demotheatre.html](https://insite.mindbreeze.com/demotheatre.html).

------
jpkeisala
I really like everything on GSA expect the price tag. I am not much fan of
Site Search since I have no control on Meta tag level. I wish they would have
kept Google Mini as middle layer between GSA and SiteSearch where I was able
to control search in custom <meta> tags. Perhaps also they could have put Mini
to Virtual Image or cloud instead of having to buy hardware with it just to
make it easier.

------
davb
It's interesting that this should pop up today. This morning I attended a
Google-sponsored event where they spoke a little about GSA.

I'd have assumed that another HN reader was present but I'm in a city with a
pretty non-existent tech community and the event only had ~30 attendees, the
majority of whom were energy sector CEOs and GIS people.

------
mutatio
Has anyone had experience with alternatives to Google Site Search? How did
they compare?

~~~
welshrats
We used FAST Search.

An interesting anecdote about the Google Search Appliance, a bunch of
companies complained about them in the beginning because they conflated
"search intranet" with "search file shares" and of course Page Rank is not as
effective on file shares as it is on web based systems.

~~~
hboon
I used to work at FAST, but left soon after they were acquired by Microsoft.
How did you use it?

------
AznHisoka
Is this a competitor/replacement for ElasticSearch or SOLR? How is it any
different?

~~~
danielrhodes
It is basically a self hosted scraper and search engine in one. You give it
your URL and some display templates and it indexes your site in much the same
way Google normally would. The only difference is that the results are stored
and served locally. They charge based on documents indexed. I don't think it
would be good for storing arbitrary data like Solr, just web pages.

------
codecondo
How long has this been available? And what are the prices, would love to learn
more.

~~~
burmask
99k for a three year commitment. Check out GroupByInc.com, too. It's a
merchandising layer over the GSA. Very bad ass.

------
SimpleXYZ
I used a google mini and learned xslt/xml/xsl. It was pretty cool...

~~~
krschmidt
Is there a replacement for the mini? We're still using ours, and don't need
the full Google Search Appliance.

~~~
SimpleXYZ
As far as I know your only options now are the GSA or Google Site Search. The
mini is on Google's incredibly long list of discontinued products and
services.

------
neves
Since when Site Search became a paid product?

------
ihsw
Why isn't there an AWS EC2 AMI of this?

~~~
mhw
Because Google Cloud Platform
[https://cloud.google.com/](https://cloud.google.com/)

------
blueskin_
Google Search Appliance? Perhaps they should call it NSA Search Appliance.
It's even a recursive acronym.

------
ape4
You gotta wonder if it calls home with your data.

~~~
bithive123
You got a firewall so you don't have to wonder.

