Consider the Alternatives to GSA Migration

Search Is Not at a Crossroads

Google’s recent announcement that it would discontinue support for the Google Search Appliance (GSA), in favor of a cloud-based implementation for its Google Search for Work offering seems to suggest a dilemma for enterprise architects.  But the dilemma is false and enterprise application developers don’t have to make a choice between a migration to the cloud or a future spent managing open source solutions (OSS) ...

If you’re looking for a GSA migration alternative, there’s a better plan.

The simplicity and basic functionality of the GSA were strong selling points when it was introduced.  Though it never achieved the dominance in large, enterprise-wide search deployments, it was a welcome way to provide basic document search for the traditional SMB market.  Google’s decision to abandon the cheerful yellow ‘Google’ box for cloud-based delivery is all about competing with a rejuvenated Microsoft in the market for cloud-resident office productivity suites.  You needn't join that battle.

Unaccustomed to paying a premium for more agile, scalable solutions, many GSA customers now perceive their only alternative to cloud-migration is to embrace low/no-cost open source search to maintain search services.   Good news!  There’s an affordable option – one which costs less than the resources you’d need to hire to support an OSS – an option that keeps your information and the search solutions you develop behind your firewall – where you wanted them in the first place – on a modern, extensible software platform.

A Proven Alternative for GSA Migration

Large organizations that adopted GSA eventually learned of its enterprise-scaling challenges – and it’s shortcomings when it comes to systematically enriching the content it catalogs for search.  Cisco Systems replaced the GSA, a technology that once drove multiple mission-critical applications, with Attivio.

 In less than four months, it’s application developers had a more agile, scalable, and powerful platform … one they now call a platform form innovation.  The case study accompanying this post spells out the challenges and how Attivio met them all – providing Cisco with an upgrade, not just a migration.  Before you choose between the two alternatives – check out the ‘third way’.