Understanding Search Options for SharePoint 2010

Before starting with the search configuration for SharePoint 2010 it is good to understand the various flavors in which search is available in SharePoint 2010. You can classify the search capabilities of SharePoint in the following five options:

• SharePoint 2010 Foundation—As indicated in Hour 1, “Introducing SharePoint 2010,” SharePoint Foundation 2010 is a basic version of SharePoint that corresponds to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in the 2007 version of SharePoint. SharePoint 2010 Foundation provides basic search capabilities limited to searching within the current site. In most cases these capabilities will not be enough unless your requirements around search are truly limited.

• Search Server 2010 Express—This is a free, standalone installation for adding better search capabilities to your installation of SharePoint Foundation 2010. You will go with the Search Server 2010 Express when you want to have advanced search capabilities without the complexity of SharePoint Server 2010. The features provided by Search Server 2010 Express include search analytics reporting, user interface–based (UI-based) administration, relevancy tuning by document or site promotions, common connector framework for indexing and federation, search from Windows 7 and Windows Mobile, metadata-based refinement panel, metadata extraction on managed properties, scriptable deployment, and management using Windows PowerShell, relevance improves with social behavior, query suggestions, related searches, and improved “Did you mean?” Search Server 2010 Express has the limitations of processing 300,000 items with SQL Server 2008 Express and 10 million with SQL Server. Also the processing is limited to one server.

• Search Server 2010—This provides all the benefits of Search Server 2010 Express. However, it can process 100 million items across multiple servers.

• SharePoint Server 2010—This includes a complete search solution with many advanced features. The search of SharePoint Server 2010 includes all the features available in Search Server 2010.

• FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010—This is a separate product and has highly advanced search features. FAST Search for SharePoint Server 2010 provides many features that are missing in SharePoint Server 2010 and also has greater indexing capabilities.