Integrating the Google Search Appliance with a WebCenter or Liferay Portal

Integrating the Google Search Appliance with WebCenter or Liferay Portal

Presented by Fishbowl Solutions

www.fishbowlsolutions.com

Agenda

+ Google Search for Portal Overview

+ Serving GSA Results in a Portal

+ Fishbowl’s GSA Portal Search Suite

+ Demo

+ Questions


Who we are

Partnering with businesses to solve costly and frustrating knowledge sharing problems

• Google Enterprise Partner• Oracle Gold Partner

• WebCenter Content• WebCenter Portal

• Specializing in portals & content management for 14 years

• 100+ Projects in the past 2 years


Week #1 Recap

+ Google Enterprise Search for Portals

+ Introduction to the GSA

+ Relevant, Simple, and Secure


I want Google search in my portal ...

... now what?


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The End Goal

Search all my content from one place my portal!


10,000-Foot View: How We Get There

#1. Index: Get your content indexed by the GSA so it’s searchable.

#3. Integrate: Enable Google

searches within the portal.

#4. Search: Find what you need

and get back to work.

#2. Configure: Define your search experience on the GSA.

Cloud Storage PLM CRM CAD

CMS KBFile ShareEnterprise SocialBug Tracking

Web Servers


Today’s Conversation








But, First… Indexing.








Indexing Overview

1. Crawling– Web crawler / spider

– Process used by public search engines

– Uses start and follow patterns

2. Feeding– Send documents to the search

appliance for indexing

– Feeds and Connectors

– Google Connector Framework

• Google-Supported

• Fishbowl-Supported

• And more…

– Index content management systems & other “non-websites”

Connectors from Google

SharePoint

File Systems

Lotus Notes

Livelink

LDAP

Documentum

FileNet

Databases

Connectors from Fishbowl

Oracle WebCenter Content

YouTube

PTC Windchill


What are my options to integrate GSA results with a portal?


Options for Integrating Search in a Portal

1. Onboard Frontend XSLT

2. Proxy application


Serving Overview

Onboard Frontend XSLTProxy Application

(XML)

(HTML) (HTML)

Search Results


XSLT frontend on the GSA

+ Hosted on the GSA+ Out-of-the-box way to serve search results+ Can be customized to match site design+ Can be rendered in an inline frame or users can be redirected+ Uses XSLT to convert the XML response into HTML + Looks like Google.com… from the early days


XSLT frontend on the GSA

Pros

+ Quick, easy to roll out

+ Basic configuration interface built-in for controlling features, logo, etc.

+ No added cost to deploy (unless paying someone to customize)

+ Supported and updated by Google

+ Handles advanced features such as document previews, type-ahead, click-tracking

Cons

+ Poor to average user experience - usually looks dated, doesn’t match portal, disconnected

+ GSA must be accessible outside the firewall if using externally

+ Limitations on combining certain features – ex: dynamic result clusters and dynamic navigation

+ Difficult to customize extensively

+ Uses Google’s undocumented, unsupported XSLT stylesheet – requires XSLT knowledge

+ Single sign on challenges and complexity especially with iframes


Proxy Application

+ Custom portal integration with GSA - portlet, taskflow+ XML is returned to the portal and the portal application

processes the XML to create the search results page+ Usually a custom development effort+ Implement search request and response processing+ Requires significant technical skills

– Knowledge of GSA Search Response Format– XML Transformation– Portal development:

• ADF taskflows or portlet development– Front end development – ADF or JSP / HTML / CSS


Proxy Application

Pros

+ Users remain within the portal when searching

+ Seamless user experience – quality depends on the time and effort put in

+ GSA does not need to be accessible outside the firewall

+ Development uses commonly known portal technologies rather than Google’s XSLT stylesheet

Cons

+ Requires significant technical knowledge to accomplish – GSA and portal skills

+ Moderate to high initial and change cost to add or modify later – must implement any desired features – document previews, type-ahead, people search, click-tracking, etc.

+ Must deal with security if serving secure results – write your own security integration or leverage Google's – may or may not be silent – adds complexity


GSA Portal Search Suite

+ Best of both worlds - benefits of a custom application without the coding, maintenance, and technical barriers

+ Standards-based, flexible Google search integration for WebCenter or Liferay Portal.


Product Overview

What it is:

+ A suite of Portlets– JSR-286 Standard– For WebCenter or Liferay

+ A Serving Solution– Any content in your GSA index can be served up

in the portal regardless of where it resides+ An Authentication Mechanism

– Provides silent authentication between the GSA and the portal


Why we did this…

+ A productized integration– Delivered custom projects– Deliver more value to more customers– Preference for supported, standard product– No other standard integrations for GSA & portals

+ Portlets vs. taskflows– Allows us to support both Liferay and WebCenter, easier to

support other portals in the future – Easier deployment – portlets don’t require a restart to

deploy; ADF taskflows do– Easier customization – can develop in JSP; don't have to

know ADF


Advantages of the GSA Portal Search Suite

+ Seamless

+ Flexible

+ Secure

+ Supported

+ Customizable


Seamless

+ Suite of portlets plug and play with your portal

+ Results are rendered directly in the Portal (no redirecting)

+ Comprehensive set of GSA features

– Exposes core features that make google great: type-ahead, relevancy, synonyms, spell check, etc.

– Document previews, click tracking (self-learning scorer), people search, dynamic navigation.

+ Lets you seamlessly integrate the look and feel of the search results with the rest of your portal design

– Responsive / resizable portlets

– Inherits your portal’s CSS


Flexible

+ Multiple portlets can be moved around– Search Box– Search Result (includes Document Previews)– KeyMatches– Dynamic Navigation– Dynamic Result Clusters– Collection OneBox– People Search– User Feedback

+ Configurable – Turn features on or off, edit different pages without coding

+ Different search experiences on different portal pages


Secure

+ Ready-built servlet to provide silent authentication

– Users only log in once

– Securely search all enterprise content

+ Keep GSA inside the firewall, serve internal and external use cases

– Portal proxies all requests to the GSA

– Client browser does not need access to the GSA


Supported

+ Supported and tested product

+ Access to Fishbowl support team for assistance and bug fixes

+ Support for new GSA, WebCenter or Liferay releases

+ No extensive scoping and development phase

+ Up and running more quickly than custom development

– In about 30 minutes you can be searching!


Customizable

+ Optionally supply your own CSS and JSPs for added flexibility

+ Modify the display without any back-end coding

+ Customization using JSP/ HTML / CSS – no ADF or portlet development required


Demo: What you’re going to see

+ Searching in Liferay – compare and contrast

+ Configuring the portlets

+ Searching in WebCenter

+ Creating a new search page


DemoGSA Portal Search Suite


GSA Portal Search Suite

+ The most comprehensive, flexible, and seamless GSA integration for portals available

+ Up in running in days instead of weeks or months

+ Benefits of a custom application without the coding, maintenance, and technical barriers


Any questions?


Fishbowl Solutions: One Stop Shop for GSA

sof tware hardware serv ices

+ +

web: fishbowlsolutions.com email: [email protected]

phone: +1.952.465.3400 blog: cfour.fishbowlsolutions.com


More Information

twitter: @FishbowlE20

facebook: facebook.com/fishbowlsolutions

linkedIn: join our groups webcenter content & webcenter portal

web: fishbowlsolutions.com email: [email protected]

phone: +1.952.465.3400 blog: cfour.fishbowlsolutions.com

Integrating the Google Search Appliance with a WebCenter or Liferay Portal

Technology

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