Amazon CloudSearch vs. HP Autonomy Intelligent Universal Search (discontinued)

I would like to mentioned about the scenario where Amazon cloud search was well suited is when we need regular updation of data and the subject matter requires continuous alterations due to the continuous changing environment and talking abut the least appropriate would the times when their is high level of customisation requirements in the project.

Incentivized

It does a decent job at its core functions (that other free software does just as well or better).

• Really fast queries
• Good Reporting
• Reduce the cost of the server

Incentivized

• It adheres to traditional Microsoft standards such as: fact-dump documentation with no coherent story or 'best practices' information, inability to automate common tasks, intentional obfuscation of its basic operations.
• It provides OK search results. Not great, but OK.

• First thing I would like to mentioned about its indexing speed, I have noticed while working with large sums of data
• Second I would like to mentioned about customisation challenge, although it is also its pros but a con as well, as it is a tedious task to customise when time value comes place as well.
• Thirdly, I do feel that its advanced search queries could be more supported. I have seen some level of lagging when it comes to more advanced search queries given the size of data.

Incentivized

• There are about a dozen different config files to maintain, and the most important one is dynamically modified by Autonomy itself while it runs. Which means that it is impossible to automate the configuration or keep the configs in versioned source control. Even `cp *.cfg ~/cfgbak/` won't help you roll back a change, because it is never safe to restore a previous config. You'll be using `diff new.cfg old.cfg` a lot.
• The Linux port is poorly thought out. The binaries are named *.exe. The StartService.sh scripts contain both `echo 'Are you sure you want to start the service? Hit ctrl-C to cancel''; read dummy` and, I kid you not, a `chmod a+x /path/to/my/binary.exe`.
• Many features are poorly documented, leading to lots of back and forth with the support department just to answer basic questions like "what does this error code in my logs signify?"
• It seems to reinvent the wheel, poorly, everywhere. E.g. the scheduled backup feature rolls through a user-defined finite list of directories in which to store backups. On day 0 it uses directory 0, on day 1 it uses directory 1, and after day N it rolls back and overwrites directory 0. Why would this be preferable to using a single directory and naming zip files based on the current timestamp?

Management wants to see ROI on the (hefty) cost of purchasing this software, and has mandated that we continue using it. We would prefer to switch immediately.

I didn't investigate the best alternatives to CloudSearch, but did help with implementing this feature in our application. But from what i tested and used - Cloudsearch is very fast to get queries. Some negative points can be the time to implement this and some configurations that can be tricky.

Incentivized

• It has directly or indirectly improved the operational effiecncy for sure.
• Its limitations towards limited customisation requirements makes it a bit negative side of the scenario.
• Its scalability of the growth offers seamless accommodation of large data sets which is a positive impact although.

Incentivized

• I have learned to tack a zero onto the end of any estimate I make for how long an Autonomy change will take in both planning and implementation.