Google In A Box

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Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:52AM from the besides-everybox dept.

26199 writes "The BBC is reporting on an interesting product from Google -- a shiny yellow box to add to your server rack. The box is a Linux computer, and it provides Google search facilities for your company's intranet. Just remember to think about the security implications before you install one... the article does a good job of discussing the risks." As the article points out, in-house google boxes are not a brand-new product, but now they're pushing them harder.

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That seems cool... by SoCalChris · 2004-10-20 05:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

But $34,000 for a two year license on their most basic plan seems pretty steep.

They keep talking about how they are expecting the corporate search market to take off, but it probably won't at that price.

These have been out for a few years now, has anyone ever heard of any company shelling out for one? (Besides the companies listed in the article)
1. Re:That seems cool... by n1ywb · 2004-10-20 05:10 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  At that price you could hire a geeky teenager to search for stuff on your network.
  
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  www.n1ywb.com
2. Re:That seems cool... by Roark510 · 2004-10-20 05:12 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Let's see if I got this straight. $17,000 a year to have a bot scan and record everything on my network while I pray that it doesn't get hacked. OR Take this crappy little 400Mhz box sitting here gathering dust, install Linux, set up a bot of my own and run it for free...and maybe charge my own company $10,000 a year (a savings of $7,000 a year!) Hmmm....
3. Re:That seems cool... by sirmikester · 2004-10-20 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  But the geeky teenager wouldn't be able to search everything quickly 24 hours a day. Also you'd have to deal with him leaving for college, getting a girlfriend, etc..
  
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  In linux libertas
4. Re:That seems cool... by ghostlibrary · 2004-10-20 06:34 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I wrote in another thread long ago about these. Actually, the price point is excellent.
  
  Choice A: Write an in-house app and keep it up to date and useful. Assume a half-timer to write this in 4 months plus another half-timer to do the UI, then a half-timer to debug/test it in 4 months because it didn't quite work right, plus a quarter time sysadmin for it since it's going to be high load.
  
  Already we're 8 months into developing this and don't actually _have_ a working search engine, and we've blown 2/3rds of a yearly FTE. And that's being generously low in my staffing estimates.
  
  Choice B: Toss google half a yearly FTE in pay to do it for you, and it's ready in a week, up, working stable, and you don't have to _do_ anything. And you get free maintenance and updates.
  
  Easy choice, if you're a real company. And yes, I've worked at a place that finally got one of these-- they're great. Incredibly useful, and a big cost savings.
  
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  A.
5. Re:That seems cool... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 07:47 · Score: 0
  
  I doubt you'd need to worry about him finding a girlfriend.
6. Re:That seems cool... by davegaramond · 2004-10-20 15:20 · Score: 1
  
  Choice C: Use Google Desktop Search. It's free, you just write an adapter to it. But you have to use Windows servers though. :-)
Re:Appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:08 · Score: 1, Informative

Google has had a search appliance for some time now. This really isn't new news that I can tell.

"As the article points out, in-house google boxes are not a brand-new product, but now they're pushing them harder."

Did you even get past the title before posting? Really, feel free to RTFA.
Re:Appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:08 · Score: 0

This should be coming from slashvertisement.slashdot.org instead of it.slashdot.org

Was it Timothy who posted this? He's a corporate whoring fag, anyways.
So, what's new here? by gabe · 2004-10-20 05:08 · Score: 2, Informative

The Google Appliance has been around for years.

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Gabriel Ricard
1. Re:So, what's new here? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:10 · Score: 0
  
  The Google Appliance has been around for years.
  
  Yes. The article states this. So does the summary. Did you read either of them?
2. Re:So, what's new here? by JVert · 2004-10-20 05:46 · Score: 1
  
  Now they are acutally "pushing" them, they have a PR department to get it out through different "media channels". /. the source for products that are not out yet, products that will never come out, and NOW the products that have been around for years, had no significant changes, but you should care, for... some... reason.
3. Re:So, what's new here? by St.+Arbirix · 2004-10-20 05:46 · Score: 0
  
  And so has this article.
  
  I can't track it down but the same "news" was reported 2 or 3 years ago likely making this is the most delayed dupe ever. A new Slashdot record!
  
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  Direct away from face when opening.
4. Re:So, what's new here? by jrivar59 · 2004-10-20 06:54 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  *yawn*
  
  It's been around at least since 2002. Looks like they've added some flavor holes to the front now. MMmm smell that google goodness.
5. Re:So, what's new here? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 07:52 · Score: 0
  
  I think there was a mistake in the summary, and it should have said "We're pushing them harder."
Re:Appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes, the Google Appliance has been on their site for well over a year now, though I don't know how long they've been actually selling.

It seems pretty pricey overall, but if you're a large corporation with the money, you can't beat it for searching. I can see this being quite a nice thing to have if you have enough documents to require a gargantuan SAN.
Re:Appliance by joelpt · 2004-10-20 05:17 · Score: 0

Just because they state that this is old news, does not make it newsworthy.
From the article... by Ian_Bailey · 2004-10-20 05:28 · Score: 1

However, it is not new. For the past two years, customers in the United States have already been able to buy their in-house Google.

Google says that after some fine-tuning the technology has "matured". Even large companies should be able to index and search their sprawling intranets within a few hours of switching on the Google search appliance, which can recognise about 250 different file formats.

So I'm guessing it's news that it's availale in England now (plus it's "matured", are we now comparing search engines to wine?).
Re:Appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:32 · Score: 0

How did bendsley receive a redundant moderation? Look at the time of the postings in this thread.
Re:Appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:38 · Score: 0

How did bendsley receive a redundant moderation?

Because he/she is stating something that was already stated both in the article and in the summary.
Bullshit... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 05:52 · Score: 0

They could hire me to search for stuff on their network, make them coffee and blow sunshine up their ass.
This has been around for a while by Jammer@CMH · 2004-10-20 06:13 · Score: 1

We considered buying it early last spring. I don't know how old it was then.
not the only game in town anymore by BigGerman · 2004-10-20 07:45 · Score: 1

Last time I checked, Google Appliance was not indexing file shares - http only.
My buddy's company makes appliance that does. And it costs 10% of Google's.
See my sig for details ;-)
Re:Appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-20 07:49 · Score: 0

This should be coming from slashvertisement.slashdot.org instead of it.slashdot.org

Is there a difference?
How 'bout gmail servers? by Deagol · 2004-10-20 08:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

I really dig the gmail interface. I'd kick squirrelmail to the curb in my shop if I could have an in-house gmail server.
Any news on gmail-in-a-box offerings?

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Method of processing duck feet
....or you could.... by brianjcain · 2004-10-20 13:12 · Score: 1

Save the $30k or more and use COTS hardware with mnogosearch or htdig (or ...)
Choice C: Working search engine in short order by SgtChaireBourne · 2004-10-21 03:33 · Score: 1

The main advantage to Google from an end user's point is the ranking algorithm which may be of dubious value for smaller sites. For $17000 per year, you can pay for a lot of maintenance and customization of your own search engine. It would be re-inventing the wheel, and not necessarily a better wheel, to write a search engine from scratch.
No need to write one from scratch, there are plenty out there including some not on the list. Some of these are quite customizable, you can prune various servers, directories or file types from indexing. It's even possible to custom pre-processing, for example getting rid of all navigation menus identified by 'class' from the index. At the low end- there's even Swish and htdig
If you're a sucker for punishment you can even front end one of the higher end search engines with other protocols. For example, Z39.50 allows search clients like BookWhere, Procite and Endnote to do the search, something which is useful if you have a lot of research documents. Perhaps there is a use for LDAP here, too.
However, no way would it take months to install and configure an existing search engine in its basic form. If you have a machine, it takes 20 minutes to slap Debian (or your favorite Linux or BSD) on it and a few more to install the search engine and its prerequisites. Then you spend the rest of the week reading about it and tweaking it.

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google desktop? by ClioCJS · 2004-10-21 05:22 · Score: 1

$34000 is indeed quite steep. People could install google desktop (http://desktop.google.com/) on their individual desktops and search it for free. Of course there's no easy way to search EVERY computer in your LAN.

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