CASE STUDY

Calix Gets Better Search on AEM
with searchstax

Calix gets more robust Solr infrastructure and an improved front end experience

micah-ruge

We are not search experts and were looking for a vendor to provide expert guidance to our team. We felt that SearchStax was the right vendor who could fulfill that need and give us the solution confidence we were seeking.

Micah Ruge, Director
Customer Enablement at Calix

About

Calix is the leading global B2B provider of the cloud and software platforms, systems and services required to deliver the unified access network and smart premises of tomorrow. Innovative communication service providers rely on Calix platforms to build next generation networks.

Situation

Search is an important part of the Calix website experience. The vast majority of visitors to the Calix website are service providers who need to be able to quickly find documents, software downloads or support issues in the user community. Calix has a large and diverse portfolio of advanced technology, so finding content as quickly as possible is essential for a great customer experience.

The previous version of the Calix website used the Google Search Appliance to handle the search needs for their Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) website. The Google Search Appliance was a local rack-mounted device that provided document indexing functionality for their website. When Google announced a phaseout of their search appliance in 2016, Calix needed to come up with a new search solution to go with their planned AEM upgrade.

With less than a year until support for the Google search appliance was sunsetted, the Calix team had to quickly identify potential vendors and solutions. After an exhaustive search for new solutions, the Calix team decided to implement the SearchStax Managed Search service for AEM.

Solution

Due to the size and complexity of the AEM and search upgrade, Calix broke the upgrade project into two phases.

Phase 1 was completed in 2018 and consisted of the AEM website upgrade plus replacement of core search functionality with the SearchStax Managed Search service.

Phase 2 included refinements to search including federated search to combine results from both their website and from the community platform which is on a separate platform. Other enhancements to provide a more satisfying search experience include faceted search, typeahead input on searches, restrictions to gated content and the ability to toggle between most relevant and most recent search results.

Another key component in Phase 2 was the implementation of SearchStax Site Search solution. The Site Search Analytics will provide visibility into what users are searching for on the website and gives the Calix team the ability to finetune their search experience in real time. The Search Feedback feature of SearchStax Site Search will be available for users to rate their search experience and provide comments.

Results

With SearchStax Managed Search, Calix now enjoys high-performance and high availability Solr infrastructure for their Adobe Experience Manager website. The Calix team can focus on making changes to their website without having to spend time on the operational details of their Solr infrastructure.

The SearchStax Site Search provides Calix with valuable information on what users are searching for, what searches don’t return any results and where clicks occur on the search results. Armed with this information, the Calix team can make adjustments to search, boost fields to change the search rankings and promote content.

Product

Managed Search, Site Search

Platform

AEM

Location

North America

Industry

Technology