Search-Based Applications. Gregory Grefenstette
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Feldman, IDC LINK, June 9, 2010
1.2 HIGH IMPACT, LOW RISK SOLUTION FOR BUSINESSES
SBAs offer businesses a rapid, low risk way to eliminate some of the peskiest and most common information systems (IS) problems: siloed data, poor application usability, shifting user requirements, systemic rigidity and limited scalability.
Figure 1.3: Search engine-based Sourcier makes vast volumes of structured water quality data accessible via map-based search and visualization, and ad hoc, point-and click-analysis.
Even though SBAs allow business to clear these hurdles and bring together large volumes of real time information in an immediately actionable form—thereby improving productivity, decision making and innovation—too many in the business community are still unaware that search engines can serve as an information integration, discovery and analysis platform. This is the reason we have written this book.
1.3 FERTILE GROUND FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
We have also undertaken this project to introduce SBAs to a wider segment of the data management research community. Though the convergence of search and database technologies is gradually being recognized by this community3, many researchers are still unaware of the pragmatic benefits of SBAs and the mutually beneficial evolutions underway in both search and database disciplines.
However, as a group of prominent database and search scientists recently noted, exploding data volumes and usage scenarios along with major shifts in computing hardware and platforms have resulted in an "urgent, widespread need for new data management technologies," innovations that will only come about through interdisciplinary research.4
Figure 1.4: This Akerys portal generates personalized, real-time real estate market intelligence based on unstructured online classifieds and in-house databases.
1.4 A VALUABLE TOOL FOR DATABASE ADMINISTRATORS
Like their research counterparts, many Database Administrators (DBAs)DBA database administrator are also unfamiliar with SBAs. We hope this book will raise awareness of SBAs among DBAs as well, because SBAs offer these professionals a fast and non-intrusive way to offload overtaxed systems5 and to reveal the full richness of the data those systems contain, opening database content up for free-wheeling discovery and analysis, and enabling it to be contextualized with external Web, database and enterprise content.
1.5 NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR SEARCH SPECIALISTS
For search specialists who are not yet familiar with SBAs, we hope to introduce them to this significant new way of using search technology to improve our day-to-day personal and professional lives, and to make them aware of the new opportunities for scientific advancement and entrepreneurship awaiting as we seek ways to improve the performance of search engines in the context of SBA usage.
1.6 NEW FLEXIBILITY FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS
We also hope to make software developers aware of the new options SBAs offer: one doesn’t always need to access an existing database (or create a new one) to develop business applications or to meticulously identify all user needs in advance of programming, and one need not settle for applications that must be modified every time these needs or source data change.
1.6.1 LECTURE ROADMAP
While this diversity of audiences and the short format of the book necessitate a surface treatment of many issues, we will consider our mission accomplished if each of our readers walks away with a solid (if basic) understanding of the significance, function, capabilities and limitations of SBAs, and a desire to go forth and learn more.
To begin, we’ll first take a look at the ways in which information access needs have changed, then provide a comparative view of ways in which search engines and databases work and how each has evolved. We’ll then explain how SBAs work and how and when they are being used, including presenting several case studies.
Finally, we will situate this shift within the larger context of evolutions taking place on the Web, including conceptions of the Deep Web, the Semantic Web, and the Mobile Web, and what these evolutions may mean for the next generation of SBAs.
1This new type of application has alternately been referred to as a "search application," "search-centric application," "extended business application," "unified information access application" and "search-based application." The latter is the label used by IDC’s Susan Feldman, one of the first industry analysts to identify SBAs as a disruptive trend and an influential force in the SBA label being adopted as the industry standard. Feldman has recently moved toward a more precise definition, limiting SBAs to "fully packaged applications" supplying "all the tools that are commonly needed for a specific task or workflow," that is to say, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software [Feldman and Reynolds, 2010]. However, we prefer a broader definition to underscore one of the great benefits of the SBA model: the ability for anyone to rapidly and inexpensively develop highly specific solutions for unique contexts, and, following the same pattern as database applications, we expect both custom and COTS SBAs to flourish over the next decade.
2SBAs are fueling a significant portion of the growth in the search and information access market, which IDC estimates grew at double digit rates in 2007 and 2008, and at a healthy 3.9% (to $2.1 billion) in 2009 [Feldman and Reynolds, 2010]. Gartner, Inc. estimates an compound annual growth rate of 11.7% from 2007 to 2013 for the enterprise search market [Andrews, 2010].
3See, for example, recent workshops like Using Search Engine Technology for Information Management (USETIM’09) that was held in August 2009 at the 35th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB09), which examines whether search engine technology can be used to perform tasks usually undertaken by databases. http://vldb2009.org/?q=node/30
4From the The Claremont Report on Database Research, the summary report of the May, 2008 meeting of a group of leading database and data management researchers who meet every five years to discuss the state of the research field and its impacts on practice: http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/claremont/claremontreport08.pdf
5Offloading a database means extracting all the data that a user might want to access and indexing a copy of this information in a search engine. The term offloading refers to the fact that search requests no longer access the original database, whose processing load is hence reduced.
CHAPTER 2
Evolving Business Information Access Needs
2.1 CHANGING TIMES
Figure 2.1: The 1946 ENIAC, arguably the first general-purpose electronic computer, weighed in at 30 tons and consumed 63 sq. meters of floor