Psychic Abilities No Longer a Prerequisite When Searching Corporate Data Repositories
Google. Yahoo! Bing. These are the search engines that people most often turn to research and find information on the Internet. But the problem with these search engines is that they make some assumptions that one cannot make when searching for data behind corporate fire walls. More specifically, when it comes to finding information within an organization, people do not even know what they need to search for so individuals almost need to be psychic when beginning their searches for this information.
It is pretty well known that major search engines find information that organizations make publicly available on the Internet outside of the corporate firewall. It is also becoming better known that organizations can obtain search engine solutions that assist them in finding information that resides behind corporate fire walls.
This secondary set of search engines is being deployed more often within organizations to assist them in their searches of data residing on corporate file servers, in archived data stores and Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint repositories and to help them comply with eDiscovery requests as well as make for more efficient business operations.
However not all searches occur in the same fashion. General purpose search engines - whether searching on the public Internet or behind corporate firewalls - make a general assumption in performing the search: it assumes the user wants to search all of the data to which the user has permission to access.
In the use case of a search done on the public Internet, the search engine has access to anything published on the web and the search results reflect that. In a similar fashion, the use case of a search done against information behind the firewall, the search results are limited to what the user has the security permissions to access and view. But in both cases, the search engine makes the assumption that the user wants to search and see results for all data to which the user and search engine can access.
But this assumption fails to account for situations where the user does not want to search all data repositories but only a specific data repository or type of data. The scenario where this most often occurs is when the individual knows what specific information that they are looking for and which data repository that the information resides.
In this situation, using a general purpose search engine can actually become detrimental. First, it returns much more information than the individual needs so it takes longer to sort through the search results to find the information desired. Second, when performed in the context of an eDiscovery, it may turn up information that is outside of the scope of the search boundaries agreed upon during the "meet and confer" between the plaintiff's and defendant's attorneys as part of FRCP 2006 rules.
A practical example of which search method a user will employ is reflected in how an individual performs her search and what motivates her to start her search where she does. If she knows exactly what she is looking for and knows that the data resides in Microsoft Exchange and/or Microsoft Outlook, the scope of search is simple and she will go to the search tool provided by that application to begin her search.
Conversely, if she only has a general idea of what she is looking for but no real sense of where exactly in the organization the information resides, she will resort to using a more generalized search engine that can access and search a larger number of corporate data repositories.
In discussing these two different approaches to search with Simon Taylor, CommVault's Senior Director of Information Access and Management, he brought out that CommVault® Simpana® is evolving to accommodate these two behavior patterns that users exhibit when searching within a single information search portal.
CommVault Simpana has for some time provided a search interface that fell into the latter category. It was intended for users who had little or no idea where the data resided and needed to find it regardless of its location.
However CommVault has spent the last few years understanding how users search for data to provide more structured options within its search interface to allow users to select parameters so they only search specified data stores, mine information by classification or suggestion, and focus on specific types of information derived from applications such at Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook.
The key way that Simpana differentiates itself is to provide users with a single interface to search for any data regardless of where it resides while also giving them the option to limit their searches to specific data repositories, types and classifications of information and target data when they know where it resides.
Searching for data on the Internet outside of corporate fire wall is a task so simple that even a child can do searches. However searching for information behind corporate firewalls is becoming a far more specialized task that involves accessing multiple data stores as well as verifying a user's permissions to access and view the data.
Search is only now starting to take into account a user's knowledge (or lack thereof) as to where the data resides in the enterprise. It is for these reasons that companies like CommVault are continuing to enhance search options within its software to account for these more sophisticated search behaviors of end users without the prerequisite of psychic abilities to find this data while giving them access to a single interface they can use to perform these searches.
It is pretty well known that major search engines find information that organizations make publicly available on the Internet outside of the corporate firewall. It is also becoming better known that organizations can obtain search engine solutions that assist them in finding information that resides behind corporate fire walls.
This secondary set of search engines is being deployed more often within organizations to assist them in their searches of data residing on corporate file servers, in archived data stores and Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint repositories and to help them comply with eDiscovery requests as well as make for more efficient business operations.
However not all searches occur in the same fashion. General purpose search engines - whether searching on the public Internet or behind corporate firewalls - make a general assumption in performing the search: it assumes the user wants to search all of the data to which the user has permission to access.
In the use case of a search done on the public Internet, the search engine has access to anything published on the web and the search results reflect that. In a similar fashion, the use case of a search done against information behind the firewall, the search results are limited to what the user has the security permissions to access and view. But in both cases, the search engine makes the assumption that the user wants to search and see results for all data to which the user and search engine can access.
But this assumption fails to account for situations where the user does not want to search all data repositories but only a specific data repository or type of data. The scenario where this most often occurs is when the individual knows what specific information that they are looking for and which data repository that the information resides.
In this situation, using a general purpose search engine can actually become detrimental. First, it returns much more information than the individual needs so it takes longer to sort through the search results to find the information desired. Second, when performed in the context of an eDiscovery, it may turn up information that is outside of the scope of the search boundaries agreed upon during the "meet and confer" between the plaintiff's and defendant's attorneys as part of FRCP 2006 rules.
A practical example of which search method a user will employ is reflected in how an individual performs her search and what motivates her to start her search where she does. If she knows exactly what she is looking for and knows that the data resides in Microsoft Exchange and/or Microsoft Outlook, the scope of search is simple and she will go to the search tool provided by that application to begin her search.
Conversely, if she only has a general idea of what she is looking for but no real sense of where exactly in the organization the information resides, she will resort to using a more generalized search engine that can access and search a larger number of corporate data repositories.
In discussing these two different approaches to search with Simon Taylor, CommVault's Senior Director of Information Access and Management, he brought out that CommVault® Simpana® is evolving to accommodate these two behavior patterns that users exhibit when searching within a single information search portal.
CommVault Simpana has for some time provided a search interface that fell into the latter category. It was intended for users who had little or no idea where the data resided and needed to find it regardless of its location.
However CommVault has spent the last few years understanding how users search for data to provide more structured options within its search interface to allow users to select parameters so they only search specified data stores, mine information by classification or suggestion, and focus on specific types of information derived from applications such at Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook.
The key way that Simpana differentiates itself is to provide users with a single interface to search for any data regardless of where it resides while also giving them the option to limit their searches to specific data repositories, types and classifications of information and target data when they know where it resides.
Searching for data on the Internet outside of corporate fire wall is a task so simple that even a child can do searches. However searching for information behind corporate firewalls is becoming a far more specialized task that involves accessing multiple data stores as well as verifying a user's permissions to access and view the data.
Search is only now starting to take into account a user's knowledge (or lack thereof) as to where the data resides in the enterprise. It is for these reasons that companies like CommVault are continuing to enhance search options within its software to account for these more sophisticated search behaviors of end users without the prerequisite of psychic abilities to find this data while giving them access to a single interface they can use to perform these searches.
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