Google Search Appliance Deployment Governance and Operational Models - Manual (Page 9)

9
Cost and charge models
There are a number of ways to calculate how to fund and support the search solution:
● Provide blanket IT
funds to the shared service search organization and don’t charge business
units for GSA usage
● Recoup the cost of
deploying and supporting the GSA by charging individual business units for
their usage:
1. Figure out the base GSA costs to operate, including, but not limited to license cost, data
center, racking, support, and so on.
2. Figure out a percentage of the GSA that a Business Unit is utilizing in order to come up
with a value to charge by multiplying the percentage by the total cost of the GSA.
Utilization can be some factor depending on percentage of document license utilized or
search query utilization and/or volume.
3. Charge for GSA configuration/customization based on a time and materials basis, where
each hour worked would have to be covered.
For customization, especially front end XSLT changes, a hybrid model might be most efficient, as
the business unit might have a good idea of how they want their search experience to look.
Ownership by an individual business/functional unit
In organizations where the IT model is decentralized, it is common for individual business/functional units
to drive the GSA search solution based on their individual needs. Because business units know their
system, processes, and user usage patterns best, they are in a great position to deploy a search solution
that would be most valuable to their users. To another degree, having end users shape the end state
solution can be valuable as their needs are put front and center.
Having individual business units own the search solution may also have the potential to usurp
commonplace IT governance processes and get to market faster. In the ideal case, deployment of the
GSA by a business unit may become a model for how the GSA is extended to the entire enterprise.
Even though individual business/functional units may not be following standard IT processes, it is still
important to focus and put thought into the following consideration to be able to gauge the success of the
search
deployment:
●
Funding
● Some basic process definition
● Support model moving forward
● Metrics being used to report on usage and/or value
● Reporting model
Even though search may not be deployed according to standard IT practices, having data and a baseline
that can shape future search improvements is very important.