Professional Microsoft® Search: FAST Search, SharePoint® Search, and Search Server

INTRODUCTION

AS THE EXPONENTIAL GROWTH of information continues both on the Internet and in private data stores, companies can find themselves drowning in their own data. They turn to Enterprise Search for the answer.

Enterprise Search provides the capability to find information across an organization. It is rooted in information retrieval, a deep discipline that focuses on developing frameworks to represent information, inquiries, and their relationships. Enterprise Search is now a technology that is pervasive, growing rapidly, and strategic to most organizations. Yet it is not widely understood in any depth, and the complex inner workings of search are mysterious to most, perhaps because it looks so simple on the outside.

The enterprise search industry has changed dramatically over the last two years, most notably with Microsoft's acquisition of FAST Search and Transfer in 2008. Microsoft has now introduced new Enterprise Search products based on FAST and updated existing ones. The result is a set of products that accommodates pretty much any Enterprise Search need, although the lineup can be confusing at times. All of these products are brand-new in 2010. They are the first search products from Microsoft that provide the scalability and capability to power all the search needs in an enterprise — internal and customer-facing search — for large and small corporations worldwide.

Professional Microsoft Search sheds light on search in the enterprise with a focus on Microsoft Search technology. ...