SearchOps™ Managed Services means we run your search application so you can run your business.
Why consider a Managed Service or “Search as a Service” for your Search Application?
Effectively managing search applications is essential in today’s data-driven organizations. You have multiple experts on that data and how it is used within your team.
But surfacing it effectively through enterprise search requires specific training, knowledge and experience that most organizations do not possess and cannot easily find. How do you make sure your engineering staff can focus on overall strategy and business critical tasks and spend less time on the health and performance of your search stack?
Perhaps it’s time to consider Pureinsights SearchOps™ Managed Services for Search Applications.
As content grows and users’ needs evolve, the effectiveness and performance of search applications often deteriorates over time. Most organizations keep search up to date by responding to user feedback rather than actively monitoring search engine performance to anticipate problems and address them before they reach those users. We often talk to clients who have annual discussions about how to improve search that ultimately yield big plans with big price tags that get tabled due to other priorities.
Pureinsights has found that through active, day to day engagement with search performance, the application can improve continuously, keeping user satisfaction high and eliminating the need for these annual hand wringing sessions about what is wrong and how to fix it. If you have mission-critical search needs, Pureinsights Managed Services for Search Applications can take away the daily pressure on your staff, giving them more time for strategic planning and innovation.
- Ensuring the continuity of business processes related to the search application
- Ensuring that the user experience does not degrade over time
- Better and more efficient use of your search technology and infrastructure
- Less downtime and fewer problems with expert, active management
- Lower cost of ownership over time
Scope of the Service and Staffing
Pureinsights’ Global Managed Services team can provide customizable support to ensure the reliability of your critical search applications.
The support will be staffed with a team trained on your specific search application architecture and configuration. As such, they will have knowledge on how to triage and resolve complex issues. In addition, the Global Managed Services team will have business-day access, and additional access as needed, to the PureInsights Professional Services team responsible for developing your enterprise search application platform.
We can manage applications running on virtually any existing search application infrastructure – open-source or commercial, public or private cloud based. Additionally, we support the most popular knowledge graph, NoSQL, natural language processing, and AI / machine learning technologies that may be incorporated into your unique search application architecture.
- Elasticsearch
- Solr
- MongoDB Atlas / Atlas Search
- OpenSearch / Amazon OpenSearch
- Amazon Cloud Search
- Amazon Kendra
- Google Cloud Search
- Yext Answers
- Microsoft – Azure Cognitive Search
- Microsoft – Elastic on Azure
- Microsoft Search
- Microsoft SharePoint Search
- Coveo
- Lucidworks
- Sinequa
The client is typically responsible for the monitoring of the underlying infrastructure of the Enterprise Search Platform, including servers, storage, network, and any other applications not directly part of the search application. Pureinsights provides support for the Enterprise Search Platform which is defined as the application infrastructure that directly supports a specific search application. The team typically responds to automated system monitors, or from requests directly from your Tier-3 Developer Support. We typically do not engage with front-line user support, but rather after your team has done initial triage.
Managed services search application support typically includes:
Management of day-to-day production operations
- Data ingestion, processing and indexing (real-time and batch).
- Monitoring of the Enterprise Search Platform (including custom code and configuration, underlying search technology, and any APIs that are a part of the Platform).
- Maintaining the stability and high availability of the Platform.
Incidents and problem solving.
Monitoring, responding to alerts and to direct contact from designated Client Tier 3 personnel.
Deployment of new versions, patches and hot fixes to 3rd party software utilized in the Platform.
- Platform maintenance will be coordinated with the Client.
- Major releases of the Enterprise Search Platform with new features will require involvement from Pureinsights Professional Services (under separate agreement) or from Client development personnel.
Assist with resolution of defects in the Production version of the Platform.
- In this Development Operations and Support role, Pureinsights will be responsible for verifying and deploying these fixes, but not necessarily for the programming tasks required to code these fixes.
- The coding may be performed by Client personnel or Pureinsights development personnel under a separate agreement.
All issues are managed in PureInsights’ ticketing system. Global Managed Services will monitor the system and manage the interaction with all parties and provide feedback information to Client Tier 3 Developer Support. The Client provides up to three (3) named support contacts who are authorized to log tickets or call Global Managed Services.
Pureinsights provides Service Level Agreements to support full 24×7 support for your search applications. All support activities will fall into one of the following categories, depending on their complexity, criticality, and the availability of appropriate Client resources during business hours:
Full 24 x 7
Activities that may be attended anytime following the SLA.
Arranged Prior (24 x 7)
Activities that can be attended/performed anytime but with planned, advance coordination
Business Hours (8 x 5)
Activities that will be attended/performed during business hours
All engagements with PureInsights Global Managed Services are preceded by a number of setup tasks to ensure smooth and efficient operations. These tasks typically include:
- Team Staffing definition
- Initial Planning Meetings and Customer Engagement Meetings
- Environment Planning Meetings
- A full review of covered Infrastructure, as defined in a client-specific application architecture
- An Audit of completed delivered Infrastructure
- Alignment of maintenance road maps with Client corporate plans and priorities
- Application Architecture/Infrastructure/Code Review
- Setting up of the selected initial Monitoring and Alerting systems (includes technology review)
- Documentation, including
- System Configuration
- Operational Procedures
- Support Protocols
- Training Documentation
- Environment Details
- Change Control Protocol
- Training on all components
Managed services for your search application include the following ongoing tasks:
- Deployment of all new versions to each environment and validation of proper deployment and functionality. Monitoring for regression issues and redeployment of prior versions if necessary. Applying runtime deployment changes when possible.
- Providing implication outlines of updated versions to system load and expected performance.
- Coordinating and communicating with the business prior to performing scheduled upgrades, OS patches, service packs, security patches, software patches, backup and log rotation.
- Monitoring of the complete application and generation of reports on system health, performance, top queries and other functional areas.
- Starting, stopping, suspending and resuming services – subject to approval from Client.
- Monitoring the document processing, indexing and search performance and making adjustments to improve.
- Continuously improving the monitoring systems.
- Maintaining of dictionaries (Spell checking and Synonym dictionaries).
- Performing Index Maintenance. Identify and solve indexing issues.
- Performing minor changes to the document processing pipeline.
- Executing and reporting on Engine Scoring system.
- Providing Weekly Status Reports.
- Providing Quarterly service reports and attending Quarterly meetings.
- Attending other meeting as requested by Client.
- Producing and maintaining current and future documentation and procedures.
- Performing regular back-ups and restoring of configuration and indexes.
- Scheduling and communicating associated with maintenance windows.
Need more information or wondering how to get started?
Contact us to learn more about Pureinsights SearchOps™ Managed Services for Search Applications or explore if this is the right operational model for your search application needs.
You can get started with us with a Search Application Assessment, where we can examine the current state of your applications and help you develop a roadmap for improving them. During the Assessment, you can explore whether or not Pureinsights Managed Services are suitable for your situation.