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The license for the current Google Search Appliance, model GB-5005, version 3.4.14, used as Penn State's Search Engine http://search.psu.edu/, will expire on September 1, 2006. Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET), a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS), plans to replace this appliance with a newer model.
On February 16, 2006, ASET received a new Google Search Appliance, model GB-5005, version 4.4.94. It will be configured and tested for release during the prescheduled maintenance window from 5:00 - 7:00 a.m. on July 11, 2006.
The new appliance is now available for testing by the general University community. To invoke the new search engine from a Web page, insert the following HTML:
<form method="GET" action="http://test-search-results.aset.psu.edu/search">
<input type="text" name="q" size="40" maxlength="2048" value="">
<input type="submit" name="btnG" value="Search">
<input type="hidden" name="client" value="PennState">
<input type="hidden" name="proxystylesheet" value="PennState">
<input type="hidden" name="output" value="xml_no_dtd">
<input type="hidden" name="site" value="PennState">
</form>
Note that the hostname for testing, test-search-results.aset.psu.edu, as compared to the production hostname used for search forms, search-results.aset.psu.edu has "test-" prepended. Other parameters for basic search are the same. Some features, as discussed below, may have changed. Webmasters/Web content editors who do not use changing features do not have to make any changes to their existing site(s) and may leave it/them as-is. As the name implies, this hostname should only be used for testing or for temporary transition of production websites during the upgrade.
The new appliance will crawl University Web sites with the same User-Agent; however, it will do so from an IP address different from the current appliance. Please see the Crawler Info page for details.
After the test phase is complete, the former appliance will be retired and the new appliance will move to the production hostnames/IP addresses (e.g. search-results.aset.psu.edu). For a limited time, an HTTP redirect service will be provided at the test invocation hostname/IP address, test-search-results.aset.psu.edu, to help transition search invocation forms to the new appliance.
Two current search features, subcollections and custom search results style (using XSLT documents), will change and they require alterations to the existing search invocation forms that use them:
Subcollections - Search forms that search upon subcollections using the restrict parameter will need to be changed to use the site parameter when invoking the new appliance. In the new appliance, subcollections are removed in favor of multiple collections. ASET has converted the subcollection definitions of the current appliance into collections of the new.
Webmasters/Web content providers may invoke the new search engine via the test hostname in the <form> tag "action" attribute as instructed above to seemlessly transition production sites during the upgrade. After which, they should change the "action" attribute back to the production hostname.
Custom XSLT - Search forms that use a custom XSLT file referenced by the proxystylesheet parameter will need to use an alternative means for requesting a customized version of the search results format. The Custom Style Generator page gives directions on how to use the new "FrontEnds" method.
Other changes may occur, such as in the search results XML format or other search invocation parameters.
Please note that search forms, which are not affected by the changes, may be left as-is.
Read about new features available after the upgrade.
To aid in the transition to the new version of Google Search Appliance, members of the Penn State Search Engine Team will be giving a series of presentations on the upgrade, including:
a Web Developer's Luncheon on May 16
in 141 Computer Building, from noon until 1:00 or 1:30.
a Penn State Web Conference 2006 session on June 13
entitled, "Using the Penn State Search Engine (and latest updates, 2006)".
an ITS Training seminar (to be scheduled)