Integration of search engine with Informix

Hello, At my company we have some applications running since 10 years using a third party search engine implemented as an Informix datablade ids@iiug.org. The search engine itself is a separate process and the search index is also stored outside the database. The datablade implements a specific index method that interfaces to the external search engine. For different reasons we now need to find a replacement for this search engine. There are many search engines that interface to databases but in most cases the search result is presented as a web page and is not turned back into the database. In our case we need to catch the search result within the database and join the search result with other database tables. We have tried to use BTS which is a datablade that is delivered together with Informix. It has exactly the database integration that we are looking for but unfortunately search performance is far to slow to be possible to use. Our present solution is about 1000 times faster than BTS. We are now starting up a project to use an open source search engine and feed it using triggers. The search and retrieve functions are to be written in datablade API in some way. What we don't get is the security with two phase commit of search index update, an integrated backup/restore as with BTS and the ease of replication that you can have with BTS. Maybe I should add also that the search index that we use is structured the same way that BTS supports, that you can direct the search to fields within the index (name, street, city to take an example). We have an XML-formed record stored in one column of the Informix table to be indexed to support this. Is there anyone out there that have solved the same problem? How did you do it? Regards, Rolf IDS 11.50UC9, Sun Solaris. The old search engine just supports 32 bit Informix -------------------------------------------- Rolf Wasteson Tel: 08 738 54 68 | Mobil: 0708 38 40 56 E-post: rolf.wasteson@applicate.se<mailto:rolf.wasteson@applicate.se> [cid:image002.png@01CD8AB8.447BEC00] Infodata Applicate AB Besöksadress: Primusgatan 18, Stockholm Postadress: Box 34101 | 100 26 Stockholm Tel växel: 08 738 54 00 | Fax: 08 738 50 50 www.applicate.se<http://www.applicate.se/>;