Oracle searches for enterprise data

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 3 Mar 2006 at 16:35

Database giant Oracle has launched its first enterprise search product in the form of Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g

The product searches a range of enterprise data sources including databases, file systems, enterprise content management systems, portals, email systems and enterprise applications. It can be operated on a policy-based model so that searches initiated by a given user will only return results from areas to which that user has been granted access.

'Compliance regulations mandate that organizations maintain tight controls regarding who can access specific information,' said Robert Shimp, VP, technology marketing, Oracle. 'Thus, it is increasingly important to provide search technology that delivers results customized to the user's role within the organization. Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g addresses this need.'

Enterprise Search 10g uses bots in the same way as Google and other search companies to regularly crawl the data repositories of an enterprise before creating a secure index of that information.

But Oracle is keen to point out that enterprise search is different from the consumer offerings of Google and its ilk.

'Enterprises have unique search requirements that differ from those of consumer search,' said Sue Feldman, research vice president, IDC. 'Secure access to multiple repositories, file formats, data and content is a necessary component. So, too, are ease-of-use, single point of access and integration with other major enterprise applications. As enterprise search becomes more mission-critical to information intensive organizations, they will want it to come with the same scalability, reliability and global support that they now expect from the rest of their IT infrastructure.'

Yet the demo of the product proves that the interface at least (pictured) shows close similarities with Google. With the exception of the Google logo being changed for that of Oracle Secure Enterprise Search, you might very well think you were using Google.

Instead of options to search Web, Images, News and so on the options are Calendar, Email, People, External, Documents and Support. Search results, bar sponsored links, almost mirror the style of Google. Only 'I feel lucky' is missing. Terms highlighted by sysadmins to be returned for particular queries are promoted to the top. It even features 'Did you mean...' for commonly misspelt terms.

Enterprise Search 10g will be available before the end of May. More information is available at the Oracle website.