Enterprise Search

Enterprise search is the practice of making content from multiple enterprise-type sources, such as databases and intranets, searchable to a defined audience. 

Enterprise search systems index data and documents from a variety of sources such as: file systems, intranets, document management systems, e-mail, and databases. Many enterprise search systems integrate structured and unstructured data in their collections. Enterprise search systems also use access controls to enforce a security policy on their users.

The term "enterprise search" is used to describe the application of search technology to information within an organization (though the search function and its results may still be public). Enterprise search can be contrasted with “web search”, which applies search technology to documents on the open web, and “desktop search”, which applies search technology to the content on a single computer.

Web search indexes HTML pages available via a “web crawler”. Enterprise search needs to index the multiple content sources, manage aspects such as security levels (ensuring the search index does not allow unlimited access to restricted resources) and have potentially multiple interfaces to suit different audiences (executive portal, staff intranet, supplier extranet, etc.).