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My site is not written for sharepoint.
It runs on IIS(aspmvc) interacts over http request/response and fetches db data.

  1. Does it make sense to install and use Microsoft 2013 sharepoint search for the db indexing and free text querying (ms sql) ?
    (I know I can use MS Full Text Search but the features and performance are too poor)
    (I know I can use Solr/Lucene. It is a great solution indeed. I just wonder if I can do it in MS technologies)

  2. Can I install it not as a part of Sharepoint? as a standalone indexer?
    How? will it require sharepoint foundation search?

  3. Should I install Microsoft Search Server 2010 instead for this feature? Is it as good as 2013 sharepoint search?

Thanks.

Bick
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    You should also consider other alternatives - Lucene based search engines such as Solr/Elasticsearch. Sharepoint seems to be an overkill if you just need search. – Srikanth Venugopalan Jul 07 '13 at 11:04
  • Have you check if you aren't going to breach any licence agreement? – Luis LL Jul 07 '13 at 11:27
  • @SrikanthVenugopalan : Thanks. I knew Solr is going to come up as the first comment, so I mentioned it in my original question above "It is a great solution indeed". I just want to test the MS search as I am working with MS authorization and claims and it will be more comfortable to use it. I want to gather some data regarding MS Sharepoint and Microsoft Search Server. – Bick Jul 07 '13 at 11:40
  • @LuisLL: breach any licence agreement? Please explain (Microsoft sharepoint foundation and MS Search Server Express are free) – Bick Jul 07 '13 at 11:41
  • @rails - my bad, I guess I shouldn't jump screens on my phone. In any case - you've got me curious, so I'll look at MSS when I get some time. But I would still see if Solr is an option, just because of the community support that you get for free, not just the software. – Srikanth Venugopalan Jul 07 '13 at 11:57
  • Thanks, didn't know. It's not my field. I only tried to share a bit of my old experiences with MS. – Luis LL Jul 07 '13 at 11:57

1 Answers1

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Not going to answer your questions one by one, so just skimming through them:

You will not be able to use any of SharePoint's searches without installing SharePoint. There is no separate search server for SP2013 anymore, it's all one product.

So to answer your question three: SP2013 is better than using Search Server 2010 as it includes some FAST features which you previously had to pay for. For a complete comparison what you get with the free version (foundation) see this page:

SharePoint 2013 feature comparison chart all editions

You can search through any publicly available website with the default SharePoint search, you can also use it to search using webservices or using GET parameters. It would also be possible to directly search through your database using BCS (Business data connectivtiy services), but the foundation version is a bit limited there.

I think the main problem is that you would have to install the whole SharePoint and maintain it as well. I'm not sure it's worth the hassle installing the whole product if you only want to use search. This is exactly Microsoft had inteded for the Search Server 2010 product, but they discontinued it.

Your questions quickly answered:

  1. Sure, it's a number one product for search. See Garnters analysis about this.
  2. Search Server 2010, yes you can. SP2013, no.
  3. 2013 includes the FAST search component, you previously had to pay a lot for. It's better.

My 2 cents: If you only want search, go with a search product like Lucene based products. If you want "more" than just search, or you don't want to get into yet another technology (if you already know some SharePoint) - go with SP.

Dennis G
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  • Great answer. Also, the gartner link was very usefull. Question: In the gartner link I read "In the context of the cloud, Microsoft offers Fast and SharePoint only on the Windows Azure platform and in Office 365." In the Amazon AWS I can see that they offer SharePoint. Has that changed or am I reading it wrong? http://aws.amazon.com/windows/sharepoint/ – Bick Jul 07 '13 at 14:57
  • Reading it wrong, or better said, not completely. All Gartner is saying that "FAST is only available if you host it on Azure or O365, not anywhere else". The more important part is the one in the parentheses: On-Premise, meaning on your local install, be it on any cloud hosted provider or anywhere else, you do have FAST. I don't know what the first part is meant to mean. They deeply integrated FAST with SP2013, the more you pay for licensing, the more FAST features you get (e.g. modifying the ranking models). I don't know of any hidden fast features which you get depending on hosting options. – Dennis G Jul 07 '13 at 15:07