Home > SAP News > SAP melds enterprise search with business accelerator
SAP News:
EMAIL THIS LICENSING & REPRINTS

SAP melds enterprise search with business accelerator

By Matt Danielsson, Site Editor
14 Sep 2006 | SearchSAP.com

SAP news, tips and expert advice
Digg This!    StumbleUpon Toolbar StumbleUpon    Bookmark with Delicious Del.icio.us    Add to Google

SAP has unveiled plans to introduce an enterprise search tool called Argo, which will use the technology behind its new Business Intelligence Accelerator appliance to broaden the search queries of end users.

In June, SearchSAP.com was the first to report about SAP's Argo enterprise search developments, when SAP was readying the beta version of Argo.

SAP executives said this week that the primary target for the new product will be the development community. The new feature promises to leverage the speed gains from BI Accelerator announced earlier this year, producing even faster results.

"This really is all about delivering business context to the daily work," said Kevin Fliess, SAP's vice president of emerging solutions.

Fliess said a recent survey conducted by the independent economics think tank McKinsey Global Institute found that an IT worker spent about 40% of his time on searches, 40% on coordination and just 20% on value add. By cutting down the time spent searching, more time can be spent on value add, Fliess said.

More from SAP TechEd:

SAP Muse graphical interface could be next business browser

SAP promises no major software release until 2010

Attendees at the SAP TechEd conference said the search capabilities and Business Intelligence Accelerator need to mature before being more broadly deployed across the enterprise.

Jeff Schreiber, the ERP technical team leader at Schaumburg, Ill.-based Abraxis BioScience Corp., said he wants SAP to better explain how the search features work in real life before he jumps on board. A white paper describing the functional requirements and best practices would be helpful, he said.

"It's an interesting product and sounds useful," Schreiber said. "But we're going to wait until next year before we explore it further."

The new search tool will tap structured and unstructured data in SAP. Future plans call for adding support for non-SAP data sources. The basic idea is a unified UI search that can reach across the enterprise with a minimum of hassle, Fliess said. A search box will be supported in a variety of interfaces for SAP end users, from a traditional Google-like, browser-based search to a search-capable desktop widget.

The structure enables workers to pull information as needed, with preferences and assumptions making immediately available the business processes related to the search results.

Enterprise search fits snugly on top of the BI Accelerator, an appliance developed by Intel, HP and IBM. The appliance can be plugged into NetWeaver to speed high volumes of queries from end users of SAP NetWeaver BI.

The BI Accelerator is currently pre-installed on Blade servers, and Enterprise Search will also be available pre-installed, said Nimish Mehta, Sr., vice president of SAP enterprise information management.

"We're going very long on the notion of integration," Mehta said.

The beta version of Enterprise Search is available as a free download at SDN.com, the SAP developer network Web site. Commercial availability is scheduled for 2007. SAP has not disclosed pricing.

Sound Off! -   Be the first to post a message to Sound Off!


Tags: SAP upgrades and integrationSAP analytics and reportingVIEW ALL TAGS

Digg This!    StumbleUpon Toolbar StumbleUpon    Bookmark with Delicious Del.icio.us    Add to Google


HomeNewsTopicsBlogsTipsAsk the ExpertsMultimediaWhite PapersProducts
About Us  |  Contact Us  |  For Advertisers  |  For Business Partners  |  Site Index  |  RSS
SEARCH 
TechTarget provides enterprise IT professionals with the information they need to perform their jobs - from developing strategy, to making cost-effective IT purchase decisions and managing their organizations' IT projects - with its network of technology-specific Web sites, events and magazines.

TechTarget Corporate Web Site  |  Media Kits  |  Reprints  |  Site Map




All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2000 - 2008, TechTarget | Read our Privacy Policy
SearchSAP.com is a search service provided by TechTarget and is completely
independent of and not affiliated with SAP AG.
  TechTarget - The IT Media ROI Experts