by Frank Donatone

Created on: September 29, 2007

First we should describe what Mini Google is all about. Google description of Mini Google is as follows..

"The Google Mini offers the simplicity and power of Google's enterprise search technology at a great price. An integrated hardware and software solution, the Mini offers true plug-and-play installation and can be purchased online. Whether you're looking to search your company's internal information or your public website, the Mini has the features for your business."

OK..lets get down to the facts.

COST:

If you want it for your company it costs about $1,995. Google sells the Mini in four versions, which vary only in how many documents they will index. The $1,995 Mini indexes up to 50,000 documents, whereas you can index 100,000 documents for $2,995, 200,000 documents for $5,995, or 300,000 for $8,995. You can upgrade the Mini license should you need to increase your indexing limits. All the licenses include one year of full e-mail support, software updates and overnight hardware replacement should the Mini suffer a failure. Google does not offer phone support. Annual license renewal costs $995, which you can choose to forego. The Mini will continue to function, however it will not be eligible for further support, software upgrades or hardware replacement.

In my opinion its built to be plug and play and lives up to Google's reputation for quality at an affordable price.

WHAT IT IS:

It allows you to bring the Google look and feel to your companies intranet. They call it a search appliance. Its actually a computer that plugs into your sever rack. It is a 1U-sized server. It runs a version of the Red Hat Linux operating system on what Google calls a "standard" Intel/PC hardware. It runs without a monitor and you control it from a web browser.The Mini comes with two LAN ports, one of which is used only for initial setup. The setup LAN port assigns a DHCP IP address to whatever computer you've connected to it. You then open a browser and connect to the Mini's static setup address.

USE:
While the mini is advertised by Google for the intranet you can also server files to the internet.

CRAWLING AND INDEXING:

You tell it what to crawl and index and set up search access for your users. It can access your documents three ways: HTTP (standard Web browsing), HTTPS (secure Web browsing), and CIFS, or shared network folders. Documents restricted to access by other protocols, such as FTP, cannot be seen by the Mini, unless they are also accessible by one of the above three supported

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