Version 2.5 of Faceted Search for Office SharePoint Server brings to the table a consistent collection of improvements on top of the inherent bug fixes associated with the introduction of a new build. According to Leonid Lyublinski, senior consultant, Microsoft Consultancy Services, the latest release is designed to deliver support for quoted search and duplicates, but also to boost to the new level features and capabilities such as code refactoring, facet sorting and offering a new standard for security validation.

"Starting Faceted Search 2.5, the solution relies on Microsoft Enterprise Library to address common software requirements in caching, logging, exception handling, policy injection etc., etc. More importantly, the 2.5 is a ground breaking release that is setting new targets for the Faceted Search," Lyublinski added.

The new features offered with Faceted Search 2.5 are focused on a variety of areas across the product. Microsoft has improved caching and performance, streamlined web part properties, added logical "OR" queries to the search capabilities, debuted Parent-Child relationships, advanced search and even Synchronization with Core Search Results web part.

As far as caching is concerned, Lyublinski revealed that "the solution uses 2 mechanisms for manageable cache: quick and long. I built the caching logic on assumption that user knows what he/she is looking for. The Search Facets web part will cache original result set and use it for the search refinement, paging and other postbacks. If the initial result set doesn't provide full coverage of the search, the smart 2nd thread will run against real-time data providing adjustment to the cached match."

Lyublinski ensured that Microsoft would continue to enable the evolution of MOSS Faceted Search. In this context an entire team was put together in order to deal with the project, and future development directions. "[At the] present we are looking at AJAX and SilverLight and hopefully you'll start seeing more and more power of Facets in the near future," Lyublinski concluded.

Faceted Search 2.5 Beta is available for download here.