Why Solr and Enterprise Search?

Search is Everywhere

Internet search, mainly because of Google, has an interesting side effect: people expect search everywhere.

There are billions of people trained in search on a global scale, something you simply couldn't afford to pay the training costs for. Yet, Google by its very way of doing business did just this—and mostly for zero cost, ensuring billions of daily searches as of 2013, and growing.

Where do we see search applications? You have YAHOO! for web search, a search box in the top right for your files in Windows Explorer, Spotlight in Mac, the Charms bar in Windows 8, Bing, Outlook, iPhone, and Android; the list is huge and seemingly never-ending.

Search is everywhere to make your life easy in all aspects.

2. Various Search Tools

There is far more to search than meets the eye, however. Mr. Kamran Khan, CEO of Search Technologies, says that in the majority of cases there are only two types of search: outside the firewall, and inside the firewall. Outside the firewall is used to make money, and inside the firewall to save money.

So I asked, “why?”

• Outside the firewall search is a powerful tool for selling. Think, for example, of eBay and Amazon. A good search in an e-commerce site allows a customer to find what he or she is looking for and purchase. Ka-ching! The cash register is happy!
• Inside the firewall search helps find preexisting items, related work, or internal documents, all of which allow employees to leverage the technology to their advantage and avoid duplicating work.

People expect to find things, and fast—human nature craves simplicity and accuracy.

Definition

Let’s look at the definition of search:

To make a thorough examination of, or look over carefully in order to find something.

To make a careful examination or investigation of, to probe. Or to conduct a thorough investigation, seek.

Source: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (or Google “define:search”)

As the definition points out, searching is the action of seeking something, yet the most important part of searching for something is the ability to find it. I’ve said it several times to multiple search engineers: instead of “search engines,” we should call them “find engines,” but I have received no traction with this idea.

Semantics aside, this book will focus on Enterprise Search, and specifically with Solr. We define Enterprise Search as the practice of generating content and making it searchable to a defined audience out of multiple enterprise-type data sources, like a database or a CMS.

As an example, if you use SharePoint in your organization, the search input found at the top right is classed as an enterprise search solution. Anything that attempts to take a large tangled mass of many different sources of internal corporate data, and allows that data to be indexed, filtered, and organized with a goal to finding inner information easier, is classed as and applicable to be an enterprise based search solution.

Why Solr?

Apache Solr is open-source, it has a fast and sophisticated text search, it's highly extensible, highly scalable, and can work with dynamic content. It has great query speed when properly scaled, and there are many more reasons. Solr also has a very active development community made of individuals and companies who contribute with new features and bug fixes on a regular basis.

On an historic note, search never used to be for the faint of heart. Some of the older solutions were very, very complex and would easily cost many tens of thousands of dollars; a fully commercially supported solution might even cost millions of dollars. Then Solr changed the name of the game in a very big way, and now it's here to stay.

Search engines are a totally different animal. You will either fall in love with what you can do with a search engine, or you might end up absolutely hating them if you try to tackle them head-on without the proper resources. With Solr, you're in luck: this is a proper resource for a small budget with an army of helpers to help you get started smoothly and efficiently.

Solr’s History and Famous Sites

Solar (with an A) was developed as an in-house platform by CNET Networks (starting in 2004, by Yonik Seeley) to add search to the company website. In 2006, CNET Networks decided to openly publish the code by donating it to the Apache Foundation under the Lucene top-level project, and it became Solr. In case you are wondering, Solr is not an acronym.

Now, Apache Solr powers some of the biggest enterprise search sites and institutions like the White House, AOL, AT&T Interactive, Yellow Pages, Instagram, Usados.cr, eHarmony, Sears, Netflix, Zappos, Disney, NASA, and many more.