Google Search Appliance Getting the Most from Your Google Search Appliance - Manual (Page 8)

Google Search Appliance: Getting the Most from Your Google Search Appliance Introduction 8
• “Crawling and Indexing Content Sources” on page 8
• “Serving Search Results to Users” on page 8
This section provides an overview of each of these aspects.
Crawling and Indexing Content Sources
The Google Search Appliance can crawl and index content from many sources, including:
• File shares—Files in 220 different formats, such as HTML, PDF, Microsoft Office, and many more
• Intranets—All files on your intranets or other web servers
• Content Management Systems—Information in content management systems, with built-in
connectivity to EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, Open Text Livelink, and Microsoft SharePoint
• Enterprise applications—Information in your business applications, using Google’s OneBox for
Enterprise, which enables a search appliance to connect with enterprise applications, such as
Customer Relations Management (CRM) systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and
financial databases
• Databases—Records in relational database management systems, including IBM DB2, Microsoft
SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase
• World Wide Web—Information on the web
For more information about how the Google Search Appliance crawls and indexes different types of
content sources, refer to “Crawling and Indexing” on page 15.
Serving Search Results to Users
When users search for information, the Google Search Appliance returns a single set of search results
that are integrated from different types of sources. Results are ranked based on relevancy. The
following figure shows a set of search results that are integrated from sources including an intranet, two
content management systems, and a file share.
You can effectively provide universal search by just using the Google Search Appliance’s built-in features
(see “Built-In Search Experience Features” on page 31). However, the Google Search Appliance provides
many capabilities and features that—when used—enable you to enhance universal search and the
search experience for your users.