Search is ubiquitous and in many ways, an integral part of our life and work. Considering the vast amount of data, we generate every minute, every hour, and every day, we can say that search has become an indispensable tool in any application or repository today. We cannot imagine our digital life without search options. Whether it’s on internet as search engines, on social media or ecommerce platforms, or any other kind of data bank, diving deep and coming out with required results would never be possible without a powerful search functionality. And that is why Microsoft came up with Azure Search Services.
Azure has a unique service offering aptly named “Azure Search.” This is a search-as-a-service cloud solution that lets you add a rich search service to your apps. This feature is a programmable search engine with intelligent search behavior that powers the search bar on your website, application, or documents. It’s also a managed search service that runs on all applications, whether they are in the cloud or on premise. You access your server and software data via an Internet connection to Microsoft’s data center rather than having costly hardware onsite.
At Beyond Intranet, we are using the power of Azure Search on some of our SharePoint add-ins like Knowledge Management. This add-in is basically a huge digital library where you can continuously add, create, and share crucial corporate information like policies and procedures, FAQs, project documents, and more. Here your team can also continuously sort, share, and search for knowledge within high-level security measures. It is really important to have an extremely powerful search tool available for our customers so they can complete faster and more accurate searches in no time.
We chose Azure Search Service because it has several business benefits which other search options do not provide. Let us understand how Azure search has a preference over others here:
The first and probably biggest reason to choose Azure is the ease and convenience of installation that comes with it. All you have to do is create an instance, create search indexes, and start using it right away.
Azure delivers an appreciable level of flexibility by giving you the option to have functionality as required. You pay for what you need, and you can integrate it with your existing technology. Azure search works well on any kind of application hosted anywhere. This means you can use it on an application that runs on Azure cloud platform, any on premise datacenter, or even ones that run on other cloud platforms.
Investing in new infrastructure is always a large investment of capital expenditure. With Azure this is no longer an issue. Instead of replacing your servers every five years, you essentially rent your server from Microsoft for a smaller monthly cost making it an operating expenditure like Office 365. You also don’t have to consider the cost of heating, cooling or powering your servers anymore because Microsoft will do it all for you.
Azure Search offers a variety of search options. When integrated with any system, Azure Search gives you suggestive, auto-complete and auto-corrective, or fuzzy search results. These various types of searches allow businesses to increase efficiency, productivity of people working on them by getting results in less time, and maintain better accuracy.
In Azure, the software updates are automated. Moreover, it is updated in real-time, so the infrastructure and applications are always up-to-date. Thus, it helps businesses grow faster while reducing their carbon footprint.
Microsoft services are known for their commendable security aspects, and the data on Azure is protected no differently. The data centers have two-tier authentication, proxy card access readers, hand geometry biometric readers, and a global incident response team. Thus the likelihood of hacking is greatly reduced.
Azure is fast in terms of deployment, operation, and scalability. This gives a competitive advantage to companies that adopt Azure, as it is the most up-to-date cloud technology and the infrastructure and applications could be made agile.
Azure is built around the privacy and security demands of businesses. Microsoft provides the most comprehensive set of compliance offerings of any cloud service provider. If you are from industry domains such as Law or Finance, you can be confident that your stored data is compliant with regulations.
Backing up your data to the Cloud is both cost-effective and smart. The disaster recovery capabilities of Azure, including regional/global failover options, rolling reboots, and the hot/cold standby modes, provide a stronghold against disasters.
Azure has built-in support to analyze data and derive insights which help in managed SQL services, Machine Learning, Stream and Cortana Analytics, allowing you to make smarter business decisions that lead to new opportunities.
So after exploring all the benefits of Azure Search Services, it isn’t hard to imagine how implementing a sound cloud transformation strategy with Azure within your business can bring about meaningful growth and value.
We have used this search in our SharePoint collaborative tools such as Knowledge Management – Enterprise Plus version. Just download the add-in and experience for yourself the miracle of this exceptional search tool!
