SharePoint ShopTalk is a live, dynamic discussion held weekly amongst SharePoint Professionals. It is an excellent source for users who need to discuss challenges or are looking for answers to pressing contemporary SharePoint questions. All are welcome to take advantage of this forum that features leading experts in the field.
This installment features BA Insight's Director of Product Marketing, Martin Muldoon and his presentation:
Connecting SharePoint/FAST Search to Line of Business SystemsFor over a decade, search vendors have promised organizations Unified Information Access to all enterprise systems, but without much success. In this session Martin Muldoon will explain why it is only now that this has finally become a possibility.
You will learn:
• What are the benefits of Unified Information Access?
• What are the primary challenges of connecting to enterprise systems?
• What are the capabilities of Microsoft’s new connector framework (BCS)
• BA Insight’s approach to connecting SharePoint / FAST to Business Systems
BA Insight conducts a live a demo of their Exchange connector enabling e-Discovery and Compliance across the enterprise.
11. Since 2008, Microsoft has led the enterprise search space… Enterprise Search Landscape 2006 2008
12. Extend the Power of Microsoft Enterprise Search Technologies… Enterprise Search Connectors Extend the power of Microsoft Enterprise Search technologies … … to every system in your organization with Search Connectors
26. www.BAinsight.com Thank You BA Insight Corporate Headquarters 60 East 42nd Street, Suite 1410 New York, NY 10165 U.S. Sales – East 1-800-656-1537 U.S. Sales – West 1-800-315-8147 EMEA Sales +45-21 14 48 17 APAC Sales +61-280147952 U.S. Federal Sales 1-800-891-7058
Editor's Notes
So my goal today is to convince you that if you are deploying search, you should be including line of business systems in the scope of your project. So this raises a number of questions, the first of which is why in the world would I want to do that? Why connect to these systems and surfrace that data through SharePoint or FAST search. The answer to that question is that if you do, the chances that you have a successful search initiative is far greater. Enterprise search is different that other types of technology infrastructure, is you deploy Active Directory on time and budget, the project is a success. No one would question that. Search is different. If you deploy search on time and budget, it doesn’t necessarily mean the project will be successful, because if they don’t like the tool they simply stop using it. There won’t be a call to the help desk. The success of a search initiative is driven by use. The more people that use it, the higher the return. When half your company values the data stored in line of business systems and you don’t include it in your search project, they’ll see little value it.So this begs the questions…wait a second…all of the systems on the screen have search systems embedded in them. Why not just use those. The answer is because they are horrible. Anyone who has used any of these systems knows that. Now there is a reason for this. Search is not core business for these vendors and they are not willing to make the investment needed to provide world class search. Microsoft in contrast spent $1.2 Billions dollars in 2008 to acquire FAST Search and Transfer. Search is strategic to them. Let’s face it, pressure from Google has a little something to do with that.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with Gartner, they analyst firm, and their Magic Quadrants. In 2006, Gartner’s Magic Quad for Enterprise Search didn’t even include Microsoft. But notice, Google was about to move into a leadership position. At that point, Microsoft announced search was strategic to them. In just two short years, Microsoft became the leader in the Search vendor landscape. Again, largely due to pressure from Google.
So back to connectors. If Microsoft has such great search technology, why aren’t they connecting into these systems. Out of the box, Microsoft provides connectors into SharePoint, File Systems, Websites, and Exchange Public Folders. Why don’t they provide more? There are two answers to this. The first is that they don’t want you to connect into these systems. They want you to migrate the data in these systems into SharePoint and retire them. The second reason is that connector technology is extremely complicated. Rather than build connectors themselves Microsoft provides a connector framework called Business Connectivity Services BCS for developing connectors into different systems. But what I’d like to impress upon you just how complex developing connectors are.