Nearly every web, mobile and Internet-of-Things (IoT) application has search functionality that helps its users locate the information they want. Depending on the industry and need, the search requirements for an application may be very simple or astonishingly complex.
While the need for search capabilities is ubiquitous in modern applications, it is surprising to find that most enterprises struggle with building high-performance, robust and cost-effective search components into their business systems. Even though most database vendors have search functionality as part their platform, and various specialized search software exists in both open source and proprietary form, enterprises still wrestle with scaling their systems so they can process increasing data volumes and users, and keeping the search capabilities of their web and mobile applications always online.
This paper describes the general search requirements that most web, mobile and IoT applications have, and the common ways enterprises have tried to deploy search systems in the past. It then describes how NoSQL database systems are fast becoming the standard database platform for these types of applications and why DataStax Enterprise, with its integrated enterprise search capabilities, can make developing powerful search components for an application fast, easy, and cost-effective.