Search knows no boundaries

Traditionally finding information embedded in Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) sites has not been that easy. SharePoint search uses SQL Server full text search internally. If a WSS site uses SQL Server as a content database, then it's available for search. However, if a site uses SQL Desktop Engine (the free, included one) it's out of luck.

Can Google Search Appliance help? You bet. The Appliance can crawl SharePoint directly, whether it uses SQL Desktop Engine or not. However, depending on the design of a SharePoint site, Google Search Appliance could face some difficulties. For example, sites buried under other sites might be "hidden" due to lack of direct links to them. That's why we have developed a little tool that will solve these challenges and enable thorough document discovery. This sample connector also pushes embedded meta data into the search index, allowing for advanced querying and fielded search. For example, a site designer defined several important attributes for a document library. By using the connector, these attributes will be treated as meta data of these documents.

This SharePoint connector is written in Java, and uses SharePoint's web services. It's not intrusive - you don't have to install anything on your SharePoint server or sites. You can run it from a single machine and retrieve any SharePoint site in the enterprise. The connector works with both SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services. If WSS sites are created by a SPS site or linked to it, the connector can discover them. If not, you can always tell the connector to point to them. It can enable indexing of all the personal sites inside SPS, both public and private content. It can access Google Search Appliance and SharePoint Server sites through separately configured proxy servers. It supports both basic and NTLM authentication for secured search, as does the appliance.

To give it a try or to get more details on this connector, including the source code, check out the SharePoint Connector Code Sample download on the Google Enterprise developer community.