FAST Introduction

FAST ESP is an integrated software application that provides a platform for searching and filtering services.It is a distributed system that enables information retrieval from any type of information. ESP combines real-time searching, advanced linguistics, and a variety of content access options into a modular, scalable
product suite.

FAST ESP does the following:

1. Retrieves or accepts content from web sites, file servers, application-specific content systems, and direct import via API
2. Transforms all content into an internal document representation
3. Analyzes and processes these documents to allow for enhanced relevancy
4. Indexes the documents and makes them searchable
5. Processes search queries against these documents
6. Applies algorithms or business rule-based ranking to the results
7. Presents the results along with the navigation options.