Congratulations, you have either purchased or are interested in purchasing the Google Search Appliance. You will soon be able to search until your heart is content. Your friends will be jealous.
Now might be a good time to think about the staff required to deploy and maintain your cool new toy investment.
The Google Search Appliance, being an appliance, does not have exactly the same staffing profile as other enterprise search engines. Some people will go so far as to claim it requires virtually no staff to deploy or maintain. You just plug it in and it works, right?
Sort of.
I would like to discuss three critical people (or roles) you will need for your implementation, and roughly when they will need to engage throughout your implementation. These may be applicable to other vendor’s solutions, but I am going to specifically address the types of maintenance the GSA requires.
The Administrator
Image by: rudolf_schuba (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rudolf_schuba/)
The Google Search Appliance is a box. Someone must plug the box into some electricity and into the network. Network settings, like the IP address, will need to be programmed into the GSA while physically connected to it. Firewall and load-balancer rules may need to be configured. Additional servers may need to be requisitioned to run components like connectors or user authentication mechanisms. If the GSA needs to be repaired by Google, or it has reached the end of its term, the hardware may need to be physically removed and replaced.
These tasks will be completed by the Administrator. The Administrator does not require special GSA training, and they are not involved much beyond the initial installation. Expect full-time utilization for a few days after the hardware arrives, and some periodic involvement during the deployment. There could be additional firewall or load-balancer rules, SSL issues, or Single Sign-On challenges along the way.
Here is where the appliance model really shines – there is virtually no involvement required of the Administrator after the implementation has launched. There are no logs to cycle, disks to defragment (is that still a thing?), or CPU/RAM to monitor. Patches and upgrades can (and should) be applied over the network by the Architect. The Administrator should not be expected to keep up with the implications and changes brought by each new patch or upgrade. As I mentioned above, the Administrator may be needed for unexpected hardware replacements, but that is about all.
The Architect
The Google Search Appliance solution will be designed and implemented by the Architect. The Architect will design the overall solution and work through the details of content indexing, security integration, and the user interface.
The Architect will be involved full-time during the design and implementation of the GSA solution, and they will be needed part-time after the launch. They will watch for patches and upgrades (a few times a year) and they will implement any corrections or additions identified by the Librarian (a few times a month). The architect should be involved when any new features or content sources are added to the GSA, as there can be subtle dependencies that the Librarian might not be aware of.
The Architect should ideally be a Google-certified or -trained resource (I know, it’s just an appliance – but making everything work nicely together is not trivial). Most companies do not have a GSA Certified Deployment Specialist on staff, and they are not easy to hire or train on short notice. That is where Google’s partner network can help out. My company, Perficient, has 4 GSA Certified Deployment Specialist, and more than a dozen additional Google-trained GSA architects and developers. I strongly recommend engaging with one of Google’s partners until you feel like one of your own employees can assume the Architect role.
The Librarian
Ah, the Librarian… didn’t we all love our elementary school Librarian? Does anyone remember what he/she did? The Librarian decided which books to stock on the shelves, which books to highlight on the endcaps or window displays, and which books to read aloud to the students.
This is exactly where I see many Google Search Appliance implementations fall flat. If you have stuck with me to the end of this post, this is where you are going to get the most helpful advice:
“Don’t forget the Librarian.” The Administrator and Architect have done their jobs, and the launch was a success. A year later, someone checks back in on the GSA to make sure it is still running fine, right?
No. No. No.
Even the best enterprise search implementation will benefit from periodic adjustments and course corrections. I’m not saying that you have to micro-manage the relevancy and biasing. But certain problems can be addressed. Check the logs periodically for searches that yield no results. Why do you suspect that is happening? Would a KeyMatch or synonym have helped the user find what they were looking for? Does the answer exist in a content source that isn’t being indexed by the GSA yet?
And the Librarian can go beyond the simple “no results found” log. How about looking through the search log for searches where the user paginated beyond the 9th or 10th page? That doesn’t sound like a successful search. Or what about combining the GSA search log plus the advanced search reporting to look for searches where the use did not click or open any results. Another red flag.
The Library should do this type of analysis periodically for the life of the implementation (not just for a week or two after launch). Lather, rinse, and repeat …
I would budget at least a few hours a week, all year long, for the Librarian to conduct the analysis and craft appropriate countermeasures. They will likely work with the Architect to implement the changes, but some Librarians feel comfortable making minor changes directly in the GSA, like adding KeyMatches or updating synonym files. A little training goes a long way.
Having participation from these three people will give you the best chance for a successful Google Search Appliance implementation – which is our favorite kind. If you need help or advice, please contact us or leave a comment below.
