Fast Search and Transfer has introduced an expanded
search platform designed to provide a single point of access to all
enterprise information regardless of data format, structure, or
location.
Fast ESP offers a modular, Java-based framework that combines
data and text mining techniques to find information and make sense
of it in the context of the organisation using it, according to
John Rueter, vice president of global marketing at Fast.
"On top of [finding] the information, the analysis of the
information is what is important. We focus on analysis -- relevancy
and query analysis. ESP is a marriage of data mining and text
mining."
The primary goal of Fast ESP is to provide a 360-degree view of
enterprise information regardless of its location, said Andrew
McKay, vice president of technical sales at Fast.
Through J2EE, .net, and HTTP-based connector technology, Fast
ESP crawls structured and unstructured data in global databases,
corporate intranets, or on the web.
Today, enterprises have pockets of search deployed at the
departmental level, which results in a limited view of corporate
data, McKay said.
Fast uses its ESP platform to fuel search derivative
applications, which are specialised, search-dependent packages
deployed to solve specific business problems.
Fast's search applications include Fast Data Search for Site
Search, for public-facing websites; Fast Data Search for
Compliance, which provides a single access point to documents,
transactions, and e-mails relating to a specific subject; Fast Data
Search for eCommerce, for online retailers; Fast Data Search for
Intranets; and Fast Data Search 360, offering a complete platform
for searching databases, intranets and the web.
Yankee Group senior analyst Rob Lancaster said Fast's strategy
to deliver a comprehensive platform delivered in the form of
packages tailored to business needs is the right approach to
enterprise search.
"It impressed me the way they think about the space, the notion
of search derivative applications is a great idea," Lancaster said.
"As big infrastructure vendors like IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft push
into the search space and embed search in their own offerings,
broad horizontal search will become a commodity product. So
pure-play search vendors like Fast need to leverage their
technology."
Cathleen Moore writes for InfoWorld