The Gilbane Advisor

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Gilbane SF conference program posted

The conference session descriptions have now been posted at including bi-directional links with the schedule. The program (and the page) are about 90% complete – there are a couple of session descriptions to be added and not all speakers are listed yet. The speaker bio page is also posted at with many of the speakers listed. Bi-directional inks between the speaker bios are conference sessions are being worked on now. And attendee, speaker, and press registration are open at: .

Gilbane Group’s use of Twitter

We’ve started using Twitter in multiple ways, and while our use of it will certainly evolve, I thought it would be helpful to point how what we are doing with it. (I’ll save thoughts about how it could or should be used for another time.)

Any suggestions on how else we might use Twitter?

Federated Search: Setting User Expectations

In the past few months, it is rare that I am briefed on an enterprise search product without a claim to provide “federated search.” Having worked with the original ANSI standard, Z39.50, and on one of the many review committees for it back in the early 1990s, it is a topic that always catches my attention.

Some of the history of search federation is described in this rather sketchy article at Wikipedia. However, I want clarify the original call for such a standard. It comes from the days when public access to search technologies was available primarily through library on-line catalogs in pubic and academic institutional libraries. A demand for the ability to search not only one’s local library system and network (e.g. a university often standardized on one library system to include all the holdings of a number of its own libraries), but also the holdings of other universities or major public libraries. The problem was that the data structures and protocols from one library system product to the next varied in way that made it difficult for the search engine of the first system to penetrate the database of records in another system. Records might have been meta-tagged similarly, but the way the metadata were indexed and accessible to retrieval algorithms was not possible with a translating layer between systems. Thus, the Z39.50 standard was established, originally to let one library system’s user search from that library system into the contents of other libraries with different systems.

Ideally, results were presented to the searcher in a uniform citation format, organized to help the user easily recognize duplicated records, each marked with location and availability. Usually there was a very esoteric results presentation that could only be readily interpreted by librarians and research scholars.

Now we live in a digitized content environment in which the dissimilarities across content management systems, content repositories, publishers’ databases, and library catalogs have increased a hundred fold. The need for federating or translation layers to bring order to this metadata or metadata-less chaos has only become stronger. The ANSI standard is largely ignored by content platform vendors, thus leaving the federating solution to non-embedded search products. A buyer of search must do deep testing to determine if the enterprise search engine you have acquired actually stands up well under a load of retrieving across numerous disparate repositories. And you need a very astute and experienced searcher with expert familiarity of content in all the repositories to make an evaluation as to suitability for the circumstance in which the engine will be used.

So, let’s just recap what you need to know before you select and license a product claiming to support what you expect from search federation:

  • Federated search is a process for retrieving content either serially or concurrently from multiple targeted sources that are indexed separately, and then presenting results in a unified display. You can imagine that there will be a huge variation in how well those claims might be satisfied.
  • Federation is an expansion of the concept of content aggregation. It has play in a multi-domain environment of only internal sites OR a mix of internal and external sites that might include the deep (hidden) web. Across multiple domains complete federation supports at least four distinct functions:
    • Integration of the results from a number of targeted searchable domains, each with its own search engine
    • Disambiguation of content results when similar but non-identical pieces of content might be included
    • Normalization of search results so that content from different domains is presented similarly
    • Consolidation of the search operation (standardizing a query to each of the target search engines) and standardizing the results so they appear to be coming from a single search operation

In order to do this effectively and cleanly, the federating layer of software, which probably comes from a third-party like MuseGlobal, must have “connectors” that recognize the structures of all the repositories that will be targeted from the “home” search engine.

Why is this relevant? In short, because it is expected by users that when they search, all the results they are looking at represent all the content from all the repositories they believed they were searching in a format that makes sense to them. It is a very tall order for any search system to do this but when enterprise information managers are trying to meet a business manager’s or executive’s lofty expectations, anything less is viewed as the failure of enterprise search. Or else, they better set expectations lower.

Ingres Launches Open Source Enterprise Content Management Offering

Ingres Corporation announced the availability of the Ingres Icebreaker Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Appliance. Powered by Alfresco’s open source alternative software for enterprise content management, the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance gives businesses a way to manage business content growth. Like other commercial open source solutions, the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance lets IT purchasers pay only for the software and support they actually need. For the Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance, Ingres provides the open source database for a company’s advanced data repository needs, Alfresco provides the content management expertise, and their technology runs on the Ingres Database. It is an appliance that allows developers to bring two open technologies together on the open source Linux operating system. The Ingres Icebreaker ECM Appliance integrates the operating system, the database, and the ECM technology and is installed as a unit, managed as a unit, and maintained as a unit. The Ingres Icebreaker ECM appliance allows users to capture, store, and preserve data, assist in the management of data, and deliver data to customers and partners. To download the Ingres Icebreaker ECM appliance today, please go to http://esd.ingres.com, http://www.ingres.com

 

2009 Gilbane San Francisco Conference to Focus on Business Impact of Global Content Management and Social Media

One of the most closely watched technology trends for 2009 is the need for enterprises to leverage new web platforms while holding down the costs of managing their ever-proliferating content. Even in the midst of the current economic downturn, critical areas related to global business content will see double-digit growth over the next 12 months – including spending on search technologies which is projected to represent almost half of all digital spending by businesses in 2009, along with rising corporate investment in social media tools (Source: Winterberry Group). Reflecting these fundamental shifts in the way enterprises engage with customers and disseminate information, the sixth annual Gilbane San Francisco June 2-4, 2009 at the Westin Hotel in San Francisco – will focus on the timely theme “Where Content Management Meets Social Media.” Produced by The Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars, the 2009 Gilbane San Francisco conference will offer enhanced programs tied to the business issues surrounding a company’s marketing, technical and enterprise content. The conference tracks have been organized around the four major areas of how enterprises use Web and content technologies and where they are most likely to invest, including: Web Business & Engagement; Managing Collaboration & Social Media; Enterprise Content: Searching, Integrating & Publishing; and Content Infrastructure. Gilbane San Francisco brings together industry experts from leading technology, enterprise IT, analyst, and consulting firms who provide attendees with the latest successful content management and new media strategies, technologies and techniques. In addition to the latest best practices, technology coverage within these four tracks will include enterprise and site search; content globalization; semantic technologies; publishing; XML; and social media tools and platforms from Twitter to business blogs, project wikis and microformats. The just-published schedule of conference sessions can be viewed at http://gilbanesf.com/conference-schedule.html.

Pre-conference workshops will feature industry thought leaders covering core topics in web content, new media, Sharepoint and more — the full schedule of workshops can be found at http://gilbanesf.com/workshops.html. IT and business professionals involved in content creation, management, delivery or analytics wishing to attend the conference may register at: http://gilbanesf.com/registration_information.html. Technology solution providers wishing to exhibit or sponsor should visit: http://gilbanesf.com/exhibitors_sponsors.html. Follow the conference on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/gilbanesf

 

XML Communities on LinkedIn

Just spent an excessive number of hours perusing the XML and related community groups on various Web community sites.  There are several social community tools and sites, but even just LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/). seems to have dozens of community groups that at least mention XML in their descriptions, and several have it prominent in their names and logos. I joined several. Let’s see what happens. Stay tuned… </>

New Workshop on Implementing DITA

As part of our Gilbane Onsite Technology Strategy Workshop Series, we are happy to announce a new workshop, Implementing DITA.

Course Description

DITA, the Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an emerging standard for content creation, management, and distribution. How does DITA differ from other XML applications? Will it work for my vertical industry’s content? From technical documentation, to training manuals, from scientific papers to statutory publishing. DITA addresses one of the most challenging aspects of XML implementation, developing a data model that can be user and shared with information partners. Even so, DITA implementation requires effective process, software, and content management strategies to achieve the benefits promised by the DITA business case, cost-effective, reusable content. This seminar will familiarize you with DITA concepts and terminology, describe business benefits, implementation challenges, and best practices for adopting DITA. How DITA enables key business processes will be explored, including content management, formatting & publishing, multi-lingual localization, and reusable open content. Attendees will be able to participate in developing an effective DITA content management strategy.

Audience

This is an introductory course suitable for anyone looking to better understand DITA standard, terminology, processes, benefits, and best practices. A basic understanding of computer processing applications and production processes is helpful. Familiarity with XML concepts and publishing helpful, but not required. No programming experience required.

Topics Covered

  • The Business Drivers for DITA Adoption

  • DITA Concepts and Terminology

  • The DITA Content Model

  • Organizing Content with DITA Maps

  • Processing, Storing & Publishing DITA Content

  • DITA Creation, Management & Processing Tools

  • Multi-lingual Publishing with DITA

  • Extending DITA to work with Other Data Standards

  • Best Practices & Pitfalls for DITA Implementation

For more information and to customize a workshop just for your organization, please contact Ralph Marto by email or at +617.497.9443 x117

eZ Systems Releases Apache Solr-based Open Source Enterprise Search Solution eZ Find 2.0

eZ Systems released Apache Solr-based Open Source Enterprise Search solution. eZ Find 2.0, the Open Source search extension for eZ Publish, has a number of new features such as: tuning of relevance rankings, facets for drill-down search result navigation, and spell checking and suggestions on search phrases. eZ Find already included features such as relevance ranking, native support for eZ Publish access rights, keyword highlighting, sophisticated multi-language support, and the ability to search multiple sites containing millions of objects. eZ Find 2.0 is compatible with eZ Publish 4.0 and the upcoming eZ Publish 4.1. eZ Find is free to download and install on eZ Publish sites. It is also a certified extension supported under eZ Publish Premium support and maintenance agreements. http://ez.no/ezfind/download

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