Table of Contents

Oracle Ultra Search Overview

Oracle Ultra Search enables you to index and search websites, database tables, files, and mailing lists. As such, you can use Oracle Ultra Search to build different kinds of search applications. Oracle Ultra Search has the following components:
  • Server Component
  • Administration Tool
  • Crawler
  • Query API
  • Email API
  • Query Application
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Pictorial Overview



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Ultra Search Server Component

The Ultra Search Server Component consists of the Ultra Search data dictionary, Ultra Search PL/SQL packages, Ultra Search Crawler Java classes, and Oracle9i Text. Oracle9i Text provides the text indexing and search capabilities required to index and query data retrieved from your data sources such web sites, files, and database tables.

For more information about configuring the server component, see Installing Ultra Search.

Ultra Search Administration Tool

The Administration Tool is a Java Server Page (JSP) web application you use to configure and schedule the Ultra Search crawler. The administration tool is typically installed on the same machine as your web server. You can access the Administration Tool from any browser within your intranet.

The Ultra Search Administration Tool and the Ultra Search Query Application are part of the Ultra Search Middle-tier Components module. However, the Ultra Search Administration Tool is independent from the Ultra Search Query Application. Therefore, they can be hosted on different machines to enhance security or scalability.

For more information, see About the Ultra Search Administration Tool.

Ultra Search Crawler

The Ultra Search Crawler is a Java process activated by your Oracle server according to a set schedule. When activated, the Crawler spawns processor threads that fetch document from various data sources. These documents are cached in the local file system. When the cache is full, the Crawler indexes the cached files using Oracle Text. This index is used for querying.

Remote Crawler Component

You can run the crawler process on the same machine as your Ultra Search Oracle database. However, with such a setup, the crawler process might compete with the Oracle database for resources.

For better performance, you can set up the crawler to run on one or more remote machines. Each machine is known as a remote crawler and must be configured so that it shares the cache, log, and email archive directories with the database machine.

For more information, see About the Ultra Search Crawler and data sources.

Ultra Search Query API

Ultra Search provides a Java API for querying indexed data. The API returns data with and without HTML markup. The HTML markup can help you build the following search engine web interfaces:

  • Basic Search Form
  • Advanced Search Form
  • Query Result Display
  • Help Page
  • Feedback Page
  • Register URL

The Java API uses JDBC connection pooling for scalability.

For more information, see About the Ultra Search Query API

Ultra Search Java Email API

Ultra Search provides a Java API for accessing archived emails. The API is used by the Ultra Search Query Application to display emails. The API may also be used when building your own custom query application.

For more information, see About the Ultra Search Email API.

Ultra Search Query Application

Ultra Search includes a fully functional query application for users to query and display search results. The query application is written as a Java Server Page (JSP) application. The JSP application will work with any JSP1.0 compliant engine.

An introduction to these applications is given with $ORACLE_HOME/ultrasearch/sample/sample_readme.html.

For more information about the application and JSP concepts, see About the Ultra Search Query Application.