Case study

In today’s information-driven environment, search is a critical solution to problems when it slashes the time and effort separating end users from the data they value. Search spans the range of business models and use cases—from driving direct customer sales, to analytics and business
intelligence, employee productivity, and reduced administrative overhead. Making the best use of search requires two perspectives: both a look at the business requirements for a search application and a view to new business opportunities created by using search to leverage the organization’s content resources.
Thousands of organizations across different sectors and business models have harnessed Apache Lucene/Solr to search their rapidly growing and diversifying content resources. Underlying this broad adoption is the extraordinary power, scalability, and versatility of open source search
technologies.
This paper provides an overview of both the requirements and the opportunities for search applications. It then explores how real world organizations are successfully using Lucene/Solr search applications to meet those opportunities, presenting how the technology is used for specific business models and use cases across industries. In addition, it offers a baseline for setting search requirements that managers and architects can use to adopt Lucene/Solr, and adapt this open
source search technology to the unique needs of their business.