What is Google Search Appliance?

Tuesday, 30 November 2010 10:58

The Google Search Appliance is a rack-mounted hardware device that adds document indexing functionality when integrated into a web site, intranet or a stand alone document management system. Manufactured by its popular search engine parent Google Inc. as a single gateway for information retrieval, it provides the end user with a search-like interface similar to that of Google itself.

Google describe the GSA as 'an on-premise, easy-to-deploy solution [that] provides your organisation with high relevancy right out of the box, can be customised to meet your specific needs, and scales easily as your content grows.

As the Google Search Appliance product has essentially been developed to enhance the search process across the full spectrum - websites, intranets, portals, fileshares, content management systems and business applications - the benefits of combining it with Smartlogic's semantic search software, Semaphore, are multi-fold.

Smartlogic's Semaphore elevates the Google Search Appliance from an enterprise search engine to an enterprise 'find and discover' engine by adding a semantic layer of functionality on top of the already powerful native GSA search.

Smartlogic have produced a webinar - now available online here which discusses in detail how combining Semaphore with GSA turns a good search engine into the platform for compelling, intuitive search applications.