Thoughts on C-Search, Oct 4

Colin Neale, head of C-Search, an IBM Advanced Business Partner, briefed me last week on their C-Search product for Notes and Domino. With the end-of-support for Extended Search for Domino from IBM, and some architectural limitations in the current edition of IBM WebSphere Information Integrator Omnifind Edition within a Domino environment, C-Search offers some valuable points of differentiated value.

Here's the design points of C-Search that I found of particular interest.

• Runs on Any Domino Platform. C-Search runs on any platform that Domino can run on. Omnifind can run on most, but not on the IBM iSeries.


• Respects Database, Document Security and Role Security. When returning search results to the user, C-Search respects database, document-level, and role-associated security configured via Domino access control lists (ACLs) and Readers fields. In terms of role security, C-Search maps roles to users and groups in the ACL as it initially crawls the database, and then updates the role mapping on an ongoing basis as necessary due to ACL changes. Omnifind finds and returns an unfiltered list, leaving it up to Domino to deny access when the user clicks through from the search result set.


• Templated Search Configuration. In order to tell C-Search to search a specific Domino database, a document has to be filled out, describing the fields and metadata of interest. For organizations with a collection of databases that have a similar design (eg, a discussion list, or a project management database), a single document is sufficient to describe search for the collection. Omnifind requires one document per database, which makes ongoing maintenance of the search constructs difficult where a collection of databases share a common template.


• Geophysical Replica Awareness. Indexed search results within C-Search take into consideration the geophysical location of the person in reference to a collection of replicas. If the index is generated on a replica in Asia Pacific, and the user happens to be in the US and there is a closer replica, C-Search will serve up the closest match. Omnifind always goes back to the original source, thereby potentially taking longer to resolve search queries.


• Monitoring for New Domino.Doc Cabinets and Mail Databases. C-Search monitors for new databases to search. The Domino.Doc Monitor looks for the creation of new Domino.Doc document cabinets, and when one is identified, search is automatically applied. If a Cabinet is moved to a new server, search automatically follows. If the Cabinet is deleted, search is automatically adjusted. The Mail Monitor keeps an eye on the Domino Directory, and when it notices that a new Person document has been created with an associated mail database, it instantiates search for that new mailbox. Both of these innovations enable C-Search to run pretty much on autopilot.


• Shared Code Base. There are four products in the C-Search line up, and they all run off a single code base. Whether the customer gets C-Search Lite, C-Search, C-Search for Domino.Doc, or C-Search Mail Monitor depends on different settings in configuration parameters. This is good for the C-Search product, enabling Colin to minimize the time taken to roll out new capabilities to all products, and it is good for customers, enabling seamless upgrading or downgrading of C-Search.


• Replication of the Index. The C-Search index can be replicated to different servers, thus supporting indexing responsibilities across multiple servers. It can also be replicated to a local machine, enabling localized searching for faster performance or when offline.

I think it is neat to see such product leading capabilities from a smaller IBM-aligned ISV. If you are in the market for an intelligent search capability for Domino, I recommend getting in contact with Colin. Note that there is a free Lite version available, which supports up to 50 users. This means that smaller companies can take advantage of C-Search at no charge, and larger companies can install a fully-functioning edition in its development environment.

What Do You Use?
What tools and technologies does your organization use for searching across Domino databases? How do you find it? Please share your experiences below, or send an email to michael.sampson@shared-spaces.com.