Google offer(ed?) an in-house search appliance that you could host yourself - they solved many of the configuration problems by selling you the hardware it runs

Google offer(ed?) an in-house search appliance that you could host yourself - they solved many of the configuration problems by selling you the hardware it runs on so they still had control of the whole stack. Other providers solve (well, limit) the configuration problems by selling an in-house solution with very tightly locked down environment specs and they won't support anything else. If you want it in-house you have to follow their lead. Solving a gnarly problem doesn't have to mean doing all of the work yourself. Very often a customer will put some effort in to meet you in the middle.