Beyond FAST:

Using MarkLogic Server to Drive Growth

Table of Contents
1 | Introduction
2 | The Information Application Imperative
3 | MarkLogic Server: More than Search
4 | Streamling Operations
4 | Conclusion
Beyond FAST:
Using MarkLogic Server to Drive Growth

Introduction
In light of changes caused by the recent Microsoft acquisition of FAST, the product teams
at Microsoft have made a concerted effort to integrate FAST search into their existing
product line. This offers opportunities to existing SharePoint customers as FAST will
become the primary search utility powering this important enterprise product.

However, while Microsoft pursues a worldwide market strategy, it begs important ques-
tions about product and professional services support from Microsoft in markets tradi-
tionally supported by Fast Search & Transfer. A number of global media companies, for
example, have begun to use this major change as a chance to review their search strategy
and explore new technologies on the market.

1 | mark logic whitepaper


MarkLogic Server customers have seen up to
75% reductions in operating costs.
2 | mark logic whitepaper
There are many reasons why Mark Logic has
had the opportunity to provide over 100 so-
lutions to media companies large and small:
• Mark Logic is committed to media compa-
nies – As evidenced by recent divestitures
of former Fast Search & Transfer assets,
Microsoft is focused on dropping efforts
that are not central to its SharePoint strat-
egy, which include markets traditionally
supported by Fast Search & Transfer. How-
ever, Mark Logic continues to be dedicated
to designing solutions for media companies
such as Elsevier, McGraw-Hill and Warner
Music, to Congressional Quarterly, Sage
Publishing and the University of Chicago
Library.
• MarkLogic Server reduces operational
costs – Because of its modern architec-
ture, our customers have seen up to 75%
reductions in operating costs compared
to traditional search products. MarkLogic
Server supports zero-latency, incremental
index updates, in-place reindexing, and an
end to dealing with index inconsistency –
your IT team can finally say “goodbye” to
“cold updates”!
Microsoft is focused on dropping
efforts that are not central to its
SharePoint strategy.
• MarkLogic Server enables new online rev-
enue streams – Users today want more than
just links to documents – they want answers
to their questions. Our customers are build-
ing high value online destinations that drive
new traffic, build ad inventories and support
new business models, in as little as a quarter
of the time as it takes to build equivalent
applications with traditional technologies.
• MarkLogic Server offers next genera-
tion capabilities – Use MarkLogic Server
to dynamically deliver landing pages for
today’s hot topics, integrate searchable
maps into your user experience, allow your
Mark Logic has had the opportunity to
provide over 100 solutions to media
companies large and small.
users to mix and match your information to
create new custom products, immediately
alert your users when relevant information
is published and deliver your information to
partners, mobile devices, eBooks and the
web with a single product.
The Information Application
Imperative
Rapidly changing conditions are forcing
organizations to re-think how they use their
intellectual property to meet their objec-
tives, and drive new value for consumers.
Leading media companies have reached out
to their markets with new products as they
attempt to grow revenues. In this environ-
ment, the need for flexibility and agility has
never been greater.
User expectations – both inside and outside
your organization – are changing too, as they
demand the ability to discover information
in more sophisticated ways than through a
search box, and that provide them answers
to their questions. Users also want online
products tailored to support their task at
hand or content that is packaged specifi-
cally for their needs and favorite devices.
For the nimble organization that has
streamlined costs and the ability to create
new products quickly, these changes are
opportunities to establish new business
models that drive value through personal-
izing the user experience and empowering
internal staff to design new products that
were previously too difficult to create.
Finding a Platform for Rapid Innovation
For the media company looking to perform
more effectively in the marketplace, choos-
ing the right technologies to streamline
operations, accelerate the creation of new
products, and support new functionality
is critical. XML Servers provide the agility

Create interactive products where
users can find the specific pieces
of information they want, in the
context they want it in.
media companies need by providing a uni-
fied platform for storing, manipulating and
delivering content and building information
applications.
MarkLogic Server offers a paradigm shift
from the traditional model of the storing
documents in databases and using search
engines to find them -- two separate prod-
ucts to buy and manage. MarkLogic Server
is a single platform to bring products to
market faster and gives you more control
over your destiny by giving your company
the flexibility over its information strategy
that it needs.
MarkLogic Server: More than Search
With MarkLogic Server you can extend the
value of your users’ discovery experience by
leveraging modern search capabilities, such
as searchable maps that allow your users to
search for content around the globe, real-
time alerting that will push notifications to
your users’ cell phones and inboxes when
relevant information is made available, and
programmable relevance to personalize the
search results displayed for each user.
You can also create interactive products
where users can find the specific pieces of
information they want, in the context they
want it in. Your content can be repurposed
without expensive editorial processes or
expensive technical maneuvering at the sec-
tion, paragraph or even figure level to create
new kinds of products. Our customers are
using MarkLogic Server to build “at a glance”
pages that bring together all the informa-
tion a publisher has about a given topic, or
allowing their users to find relevant images
by searching the captions that reference
them. These information elements can also
be compiled – by your editors or users – and
repackaged into new forms destined for
eBooks, cell phones, and print-on-demand
books.
These new kinds of application are helping
users find the information they need more
efficiently which increases the value of your
products to them. Also, because content can
be repackaged without requiring edito-
rial intervention, you can use MarkLogic
Server to create new ad inventory by adding
new pages with advertising to your online
product, or use MarkLogic Server to create
upsell opportunities by providing teasers of
related content to users without requiring
staff to manually link documents together.
Faster and Easier Application Development
MarkLogic Server is an open platform that
provides features to make information ap-
plication development faster and easier. A
scientific journal publisher was able to build
four applications in the time they originally
budgeted for one using traditional ap-
proaches. These applications are now build-
ing brand awareness and driving new traffic
to its main pay-for-access web site. Use MarkLogic Server to create new ad
inventory or create upsell opportunities.
Support for standards such as XML and
XQuery let development teams using
MarkLogic Server leverage technologies
designed to manipulate and repurpose
information. And with the ability to quickly
create web services, development teams
can incrementally migrate to MarkLogic
Server without having to immediately throw
out existing infrastructure.
In addition, Mark Logic’s rapid application
development tool, Application Builder,
enables speedy development of base-
line applications with a point-and-click,
browser-based interface. Developers save
time in creating initial applications, and
product managers also benefit from agile
With MarkLogic Server, there is no
longer a need to contend with index
inconsistency or time consuming
“cold updates”.
3 | mark logic whitepaper
 development cycles that enable teams to Conclusion
experiment and investigate innovative new As Microsoft continues to focus Fast
applications, opening possibilities for new Search & Transfer resources on SharePoint
revenue streams that are otherwise too functionality, existing FAST customers
costly to explore. risk losing the support they need to stay
competitive. Media companies currently
Streamlining Operations
using FAST need to think about the future
MarkLogic Server has a modern architec-
of their installations, and MarkLogic Server
ture that lower costs by reducing hardware
is the ideal technology for adding powerful
requirements and administrative overhead.
capabilities beyond search. With numerous
A book cataloging company was able to
customers like Elsevier, McGraw-Hill, and
reduce both their total number of servers
Warner Music, Mark Logic is committed to
and their database administrator’s effort
media companies and provides the founda-
to manage the search engine component of
tion for building information applications
their information system by 75%, resulting
that enable businesses to gain competitive
in significant cost savings and allowing the
advantages.
company to reallocate time to other tasks.

MarkLogic Server’s ability to store

documents within its own repository also
eliminates the latency between information
updates and search results which are com-
mon in systems where information is stored
and indexed in two separate locations. In-
dexes are updated incrementally, with zero
latency, and because the original document
is stored in the system, reindexing can be
done in-place, and there is no longer a need
to contend with index inconsistency or time
consuming “cold updates”.

When compared to a typical DBMS and

search engine architecture, MarkLogic
Server usually requires fewer servers due to
higher per-server performance on similarly
sized commodity servers. Plus, the flexibil-
ity to load information “as is“, coupled with
sophisticated transformation capabilities,
reduce or eliminate the content configura-
tion necessary to build new applications.
These features also facilitate content
aggregation of multiple sources of informa-
tion into a centralized repository.

4 | mark logic whitepaper

 Mark Logic Corporation
www.marklogic.com
sales@marklogic.com
Headquarters
999 Skyway Road, Suite 200
San Carlos, CA 94070
+1 650 655 2300
New York, NY
5 Penn Plaza
23rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
+1 646 378 2104
Washington, D.C.
1600 Tysons Boulevard
8th Floor
McLean, VA 22102
+1 703 245 8590
United Kingdom
3000 Hillswood Drive
Hillswood Business Park
Chertsey, Surrey, KT16 0RS
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1932 796 400

Version 1 © Copyright 2010 Mark Logic Corporation. Mark Logic is a registered trademark and MarkLogic Server is a trademark of Mark Logic Corporation, all
January 2010 rights reserved. All other product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.