Lucid Imagination's LucidWorks 2.0 Makes Open Search Attractive to the Enterprise

By Josette Rigsby (@techielicous) Sep 27, 2011

Lucid Imagination has announced the latest version of its commercially supported Lucene/Solr distribution, LucidWorks Platform 2.0. The release is squarely focused on putting open-source search inside the enterprise, and despite what you may have heard, Lucid Imagination wants to make it clear it is not an enterprise search vendor.

LucidWorks Is Not Enterprise Search

In the decade since its creation, Lucene/Solr has become one of the most popular open-source projects and made implementing search accessible to organizations of all sizes. Despite the features and large number of installs, some enterprises still hesitate to adopt an open source solution — no vendor to call if things go horribly wrong, limited features for operational support and lack of pre-built integrations — it does not give cautious technology leaders a warm fuzzy feeling. There are options.

Lucid Imagination offers a fully commercially supported distribution of Lucene/Solr, Lucid Works Platform, and the latest release makes using open source search an even more viable option for enterprise customers. The enhancements in LucidWorks 2.0 focus on three core themes:

operational support for enterprise environments
big data support
value added enhancements to Apache Lucene/Solr 4

Peter Tait, Chief Marketing Officer, and Grant Ingersoll, Chief Scientist, for Lucid Imagination provided details on how the company is positioning LucidWorks and what’s new in the latest release.

One of the most unexpected facts Tait had regarding LucidWorks was not related to feature enhancements – LucidWorks is not an enterprise search product. According to Tait,

With this release we no longer refer to ourselves as enterprise search. We have always been a platform for people building search or search-based applications, which is fundamentally different from what has been traditionally perceived as the enterprise search market. With that said, if you look at the Lucene/Solr features and market footprint of thousands of installations already, it would be a very significant market player.”

Huh? Luckily, I speak fluent marketing, so I will translate. Lucid Imagination wants to position its product as more flexible, extensible and suitable for building search applications than the usual monolithic enterprise search solution. This will be an attractive approach for organizations that have struggled customizing or extending a search solution.

No Need to Be Nervous About Open Source Search

Lucid Imagination has been committed to making open source search enterprise option since its inception. The latest release of LucidWorks demonstrates that continued commitment. The company implemented several enhancements designed to make it easier to adopt and manage Lucene/Solr-based LucidWorks in an enterprise environment. Version 2.0 features a new administrative console that allows administrators to more efficiently configure the environment and reduces the likelihood of error due to editing configuration files manually.

In addition, the release includes:

improved security
built-in upgrade tools
pre-built connectors to connect for common enterprise data sources such as SharePoint
a standardized monitoring interface and instrumentation to allow integration with enterprise management and monitoring tools
built-in log search and indexing tools

It is also now possible to deploy LucidWorks platform to the cloud, which is an increasingly important requirement in many organizations.