Read about the Federated Search feature of Windows 7

In Windows 7, a search federation (federated Search) is launched, a feature that can be viewed as an extension and hardening of the highly acclaimed intelligent search in Windows Vista. This article will perform an interpretation of this new feature of Windows 7 in the hope of helping to understand and apply it to improve data management efficiency.

1, why to launch search federation?

The Integrated Search Federation feature certainly enhances the capabilities of Windows 7, but more than that, we are interested in Microsoft's intention to enhance the system search function. As you know, data cannot be stored in a single location in an enterprise environment, often stored in different PCs, different servers, different mobile storage devices, and so on. Therefore, to access and retrieve this data will become very cumbersome. The Search federation is based on such considerations and is integrated into Windows 7, and we can also think of it as a Windows 7 improvement for enterprise users. Using Search Federation skills, Local users do not have to deploy Third-party tools to find the required data files on other PCs in the local area network.

We know that in Windows 7 you can easily manage files and retrieve files by using the library, except that you previously needed an administrator to add the path of the file to the library. Search Federation does not rely on "libraries", which can retrieve files other than "libraries."

2. How does a federated search work?

When it comes to federated search, you have to mention search connectors. The search connector is actually an XML script file that defines information such as the target site where the search is to be performed. After adding a search connector to Windows 7, when a user performs a search using the search connector, Windows 7 wants the target site to send the conditions for the HTTP request search, and then the service returns the results of the RSS display on the client. Its approximate process is shown in the figure. (Figure 1)

3. What are the advantages of joint search?

Federated search largely frees the user, who does not need to know the appropriate information about the destination address, and gives it to the system to complete the search task. In addition, federated search provides a rich user experience: through the reader or Windows 7 Resource Manager, users can achieve data preview, thumbnail, understand metadata information, and can implement data drag and drop, data retrieval highlighting. In addition, its security is high and does not cause damage to the source data, which is validated by Windows integration. Of course, it does not add to the burden on the client, because the search is performed on the server, the code is not executed on the client, and the network traffic of the client is not significantly added because it is performed in a lightweight traffic mode. Also, the result of federated search in Windows 7 is returned in XML format. We can perform property mapping, thumbnail display and URL previews, and so on.