Google Universal Search for Business

At Google, we believe in a simple premise – all of the information you need to be productive at work should be available through one search box. In other words, universal search. Google's vision for universal search allows users to search across all content sources within an organization, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated, secure set of search results that gives them precisely what they are looking for. With the Google Search Appliance, customers are be able to securely incorporate information from a variety of internal and external sources – including file shares, intranets, databases, applications, hosted services and content management systems – into a single set of results. Google search delivers fast, relevant and secure access to information, increasing the velocity of business.

File SharesThe Google Search Appliance indexes over 220 different file formats – HTML, PDF, Microsoft Office, Open Office, and hundreds of others. The appliance crawls and indexes content in file shares and web servers directly.

Intranets The Google Search Appliance automatically crawls and indexes al l files on your Intranets and other web servers. Thus, you can have the confidence that when you search on the Intranet your results are comprehensive.

Content Management SystemsThe Google Search Appliance provides out-of-the-box connectivity with the most popular content management systems, including Documentum, FileNet, OpenText, Livelink, and Microsoft Sharepoint. In addition, there is a built-in Content Connector Framework , which includes a robust SPI to build custom connectors to other content management systems. Click here to find out more around connecting with content management systems.

Enterprise ApplicationsGoogle has developed Google OneBox for Enterprise, which enables you to connect with CRM systems, financial databases, ERP systems, business intelligence systems, and many other enterprise applications. Modeled after Google OneBox searches on Google.com – which enable you to enter flight times, stock tickers and addresses into Google.com and receive targeted, structured information right in the search results – Google OneBox for Enterprise provides the same approach inside your company. For example, a query of ‘east coast sales’ would bring back a graph of sales from your business intelligence system. Google has partnered with Oracle, Cognos, SAS, and many others to provide connectivity to key business systems. Click here to find out more about Google OneBox for Enterprise.

Databases In addition to business applications, a significant amount of valuable corporate information lives in relational databases. The Google Search Appliance can directly access content in IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase relational database systems.

Desktop Even as employees save more information on the corporate network, there will always be a tremendous amount of information stored and saved on “the desktop”. Google Desktop for Enterprise provides search across all of the files on your hard drive, all your email, web pages you’ve viewed, and IM chats. In addition, any information that is shared and deemed ‘public’ on other desktops across the enterprise can be searched and indexed. Google Desktop for Enterprise has strict security and document access settings, all of which are configurable by IT, so as to meet any business’ security requirements.

The WorldOf course, any ‘universal search’ would include all of the rich information in the World Wide Web, including news, research, images, blogs, product, and print content.

Integrated ResultsOne of the main benefits of Universal Search is the ability to integrate results across a variety of sources, to benefit the user. A simple example is shown below:

Benefits of Universal Search

Bringing universal search to your business can offer many benefits, including:

  • Increases productivity
  • Reduces duplicate work
  • Saves time searching for information
  • Better decision-making
  • Improves value of information

Learn More!

Sign up for one of our webinars on Universal Search to learn more about how they can help you extract more value from your content, or contact us.