Google has added several new features to its Search Appliance, an
integrated hardware and software device designed for use behind
corporate firewalls, as well as announcing new enterprise customers
including The Boeing Company, Cisco Systems, and the World
Bank.
New enhancements to the appliance include boosted capacity, support
for more content types, and simplified Web-based
administration.
The Linux-based Search Appliance, first introduced in February,
crawls content and Web pages using Google's code base and PageRank,
a search technique that aims to determine relevancy of links. The
appliance comes in two versions: GB-1001, designed for departments
and midsized companies; and the higher-capacity GB-8008, for large
corporate settings.
The new version of GB-1001 now supports 300,000 documents, doubling
its capacity, according to John Piscitello, product manager.
Capacity remains unchanged for the GB-8008, which also includes
built-in clustering, load balancing, failover, and existing
capacity to support millions of documents, according to Google
officials.
Google crawlers can now search Windows NT LAN Manager domains and
handle session ID environments. Support for the native security
model in NT allows the search appliance to access protected
information, Piscitello said.
Meanwhile, the ability to crawl session ID systems opens the door
to content housed in J2EE-based applications, CM (content
management) systems, and e-commerce products, he said.
Other enhancements include point-and-click Web-based
administration, simplified navigation, a customisable search
results interface, support for Lotus Domino repositories, URL
tracking and analysis, and auto spell check.
Another feature, the Page Layout Helper, serves up search results
in XML, and uses XSLT to translate to results to HTML.
Google's appliance approach to the enterprise search conundrum
helps minimise costs and makes it easer to incorporate upgrades,
Piscitello said. Customers of the appliance receive two years of
free updates.
Dropping a box in a rack means, enterprises "don't have to worry
about the OS, it is more reliable, easier to manage, and takes IT
out of the equation," he said.
Google plans to continue to broaden support for content types and
enterprise information, he added.