FAST Search Link List

Here is a huge list of links on FAST (combined from several sources, thx leo)

LINKS

SharePoint + FAST Search VM SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27417
SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search Developer Training
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff960975.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search IT Professional Training
http://technet.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/ff960998
TechNet RSS Feeds
SharePoint 2010 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262043.aspx
FAST Search 2010 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff686963.aspx
Survival Guide: FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/survival-guide-fast-search-server-2010-for-sharepoint.aspx
What's new in enterprise search (SharePoint Server 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee667266.aspx
Technical Diagrams (including one comparing all search products that work with SharePoint 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263199.aspx
FS4SP cmdlet help in .chm format
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=23d2ef19-ea50-4a08-8e1d-64a889434369
FS4SP TechNet content in .chm format
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ead44c66-7d02-4edf-9e56-2f56c6f59f22
FS4SP main page on TechNet
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/enterprisesearch/ee441234.aspx
FS4SP Forum on TechNet
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fastsharepoint/threads
Enterprise Search Scripts
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/site/search?f%5B0%5D.Type=RootCategory&f%5B0%5D.Value=sharepoint&f%5B0%5D.Text=SharePoint&f%5B1%5D.Type=SubCategory&f%5B1%5D.Value=searchmanagement&f%5B1%5D.Text=Search%20Management
 

VIDEOS

SharePoint 2010 Training
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/SharePoint2010Developer/
ITPro - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sharepoint/ff420396.aspx
Dev - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff420377.aspx
BCS
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/bcs-blog-overview-demo/10tvx2kqs
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/consuming-external-data-with-business-connectivity-services-in-sharepoint-2010/10tmc8guo
SharePoint 2010 and Claims Based Identity
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Identity/Sharepoint-2010-and-Claims-Based-Identity/
Customizing the User Experience with FAST Search
Video about Microsoft IT migration to FAST Search and benefits they got from it
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/customizing-the-user-experience-with-fast-search.aspx

Architecture

Query Interfaces diagram extracted from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arnts/archive/2009/11/27/search-driven-application-development-on-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Here is my quick breakdown of SSAs:

• FAST Content SSA – used to crawl any content source into the FAST index
• FAST Query SSA
  • Used to crawl the profile store (people search) à sps3://<site>. Content crawled through this SSA is stored in a SharePoint index (aka SQL), just like in a regular SharePoint farm without FAST.
Note: when you first create this SSA, SharePoint will automatically add all your configured web applications to the “Local SharePoint sites” content source, but this is incorrect. The only site that should be listed there is the one mentioned above (sps3://<site>) which is the one used to crawl the profile store.

• Used to serve queries both for People (SharePoint index created while crawling profile store) and for Content (FAST index populated while crawling content sources using FAST Content SSA or other connectors)
• Search Service Application SSA – used only for SP search. If you have FS4SP as your main (and only) search, this SSA can be deleted (People search, as mentioned above, will be returned through the index built by the FAST Query SSA).
Explanation of the Search Service Applications (FASTQuery and FASTContent)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arnts/archive/2010/01/27/the-two-types-of-search-service-applications-in-a-sharepoint-2010-deployment-with-fast-search-server.aspx
Performance and capacity planning
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg604780.aspx
FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Capacity Planning
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=65b799e3-825c-4398-8cd7-3311d3297997&displaylang=en
Plan FAST Search Server farm topology
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff599530.aspx
Full reference about the deployment.xml configuration file
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff354931.aspx
Configuring Multiple server deployment of the Query SSA for query fault-tolerance on the SP side
Note: you would still need query/search fault tolerance configured in the FAST farm as well
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff602184.aspx
Share service applications across farms (Publishing Farm - Consuming Farm)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621100.aspx
SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Service Application Publishing and Consuming Farms
(post about publishing/consuming User Profile Service Application and Search Service Application)
http://www.kowalski.ms/2010/07/16/sharepoint-server-2010-enterprise-service-application-publishing-and-consuming-farms/
SharePoint Server 2010 capacity management: Software boundaries and limits - Search
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx#Search
FS4SP - Plan for redundancy and availability
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff599525.aspx
FS4SP - Run the Prerequisite Installer in offline mode
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381270.aspx
FAST Search for SharePoint configuration files
(as the page states "Modifying other configuration files than those listed in this table is not supported and could lead to system inconsistencies during re-configuration and software updates.")
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff354943.aspx
FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Add or Remove an Index Column
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=28548
Virtualization Recommendations (FAST Search for SharePoint)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg702612.aspx
SharePoint Search 2010 Architecture and Scale - Part 1 Crawl & Part 2 Query
(SharePoint Search information, but a good part of it also valid for FS4SP)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2010/04/16/search-2010-architecture-and-scale-part-1-crawl.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2010/04/23/search-2010-architecture-and-scale-part-2-query.aspx
Understand, scale and monitor Crawling / Processing / Indexing in FAST Search for SharePoint
http://searchunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/understand-scale-and-monitor-crawling-processing-indexing-in-fast-search-for-sharepoint/
SharePoint Search and FAST Search for SharePoint Architecture Diagrams – Fault Tolerance and Performance
http://searchunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/sharepoint-search-and-fast-search-for-sharepoint-architecture-diagrams-fault-tolerance-and-performance/
How to configure a Dedicated Web Front End for crawling in SharePoint 2010
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vijgang/archive/2010/04/26/how-to-configure-a-dedicated-web-front-end-for-crawling-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx
How to overcome the SharePoint Search 2010 25M Item Crawl DB Limit (Also for FAST Search 2010 for SharePoint)
http://summit7systems.com/blogs/danielwebster/?p=17
SharePoint 2010 Configuring Search Service Application using PowerShell
(SharePoint Search only - not FS4SP)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2009/10/20/sharepoint-2010-configuring-search-service-application-using-powershell.aspx
SharePoint Search Architecture changes from SharePoint 2007
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spses/archive/2011/05/27/sharepoint-2010-search.aspx
Index Schema (crawled properties, managed properties, full-text index, query refinement, etc.)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff464344.aspx
Index schema cmdlets
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff393787.aspx
Refinement Configuration
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff464344.aspx#schema_refiner_configuration
Manage certificates
(includes how to replace self-signed certificate and how to add a certificate signed by a certification authority (CA))
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381244.aspx

Monitoring / Administration / Troubleshooting

Manage FAST Search Server farm topology (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)

• Increase indexing capacity to make more content searchable
• Increase query capacity to handle more queries per second or reduce query latency
• Configure query matching high availability
• Configure indexing high availability
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg482019.aspx
Performance and capacity testing (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg604775.aspx
Performance and capacity monitoring (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg604768.aspx
Performance and capacity tuning (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg604781.aspx
Move Search Databases to another Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff851878.aspx#search
Move the index files to another path (FAST Search for SharePoint)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506015
FS4SP command-line tools (nctrl, crawleradmin, etc.)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee943520.aspx
FS4SP Windows PowerShell cmdlets
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff393782.aspx
FS4SP Performance Counters
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff383289.aspx
Search administration reports
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee808861.aspx
Backup and Recovery
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff460219.aspx
Manage FAST Search Server farm topology
(Increase indexing capacity, increase query capacity, manage high availability of the content index, etc.)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg482019.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Search 'Dogfood' Part 3 - Query Performance Optimization
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/enterprisesearch/archive/2010/06/09/sharepoint-2010-search-dogfood-part-3-query-performance-optimization.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Search 'Dogfood' Part 2 - Query Health Reports
(excellent explanation of some search reports: SharePoint Backend Query Latency, Overall Query Latency and Query Latency Trend)
"The general process for diagnosing query health is to:

• look first at the trending report (Query Latency Trend) to get an idea about how your latencies are trending throughout the day. Do you have a lot of peaks and valleys in the trends or just overall high latencies? If you have peaks and valleys you can look for trends in the peaks over time as well as narrow the time window to focus on a specific peak.
• Secondly you would go to either the front end (Overall Query Latency) or backend (SharePoint Backend Query Latency) report to see precisely where all of the time is being spent. Given this you know where to focus further diagnostic efforts: front end, Query Servers or the Property store."
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/enterprisesearch/archive/2010/06/09/sharepoint-2010-search-dogfood-part-2-query-health-reports.aspx
Script - Get-FASTFixml
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/14105abb-29da-43fd-90f4-ac12f1a0233a
Understanding the FIXML Structure
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee628921.aspx
Programmatically Administering FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (FAST Admin OM)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff464439.aspx
FAST Search System/Protocol Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee629339.aspx
Info about FAST Search for SharePoint Cumulative Updates
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/fast-search-for-sharepoint-cumulative-updates.aspx
FFDDumper
(Adds a stage at the beginning of your processing pipeline that will dump the content received by document processing to the path %FASTSEARCH%\data\ffd\).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795826.aspx
Logging
FS4SP logs are in %FASTSearch%\var\log
SharePoint ULS logs are in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS
A very nice tool to look at SharePoint logs is http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ULSViewer
How To View a Sharepoint Page in Web Part Maintenance Mode
(you just need to add "?contents=1" to the URL)
http://benreichelt.net/blog/2005/11/10/how-to-view-a-sharepoint-page-in-web-part-maintenance-mode/
Exporting SharePoint 2010 Search Crawl logs
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spses/archive/2011/06/22/exporting-sharepoint-2010-search-crawl-logs.aspx


Feeding / Processing

Mystery Solved - Crawled Properties in SharePoint (Part 1)
(for SharePoint 2007, but most of it useful for SP2010/FS4SP as well)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/anneste/archive/2008/11/20/mystery-solved-crawled-properties-in-sharepoint-part-1.aspx
Crawled properties reference (SharePoint Server 2010)
(Lists the default crawled properties and their mappings. The post listed above contains more detailed information about what these properties are used for.)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh134087.aspx
Property Management (crawled properties, managed properties, property mapping)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/fast-search-server-help/property-management-HA010382016.aspx
Create or modify a crawl rule
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff473168.aspx
FAST Search Web Crawler XML configuration
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff354932.aspx
Enable Advanced Filter Pack (FS4SP)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff383314.aspx
Register third-party IFilter with FS4SP
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff354937.aspx
File types and IFilters reference (SharePoint Server 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg405170.aspx

File types and IFilters reference (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg471168.aspx

More on Ifilters from SharePoint Galaxy
http://sharepointgalaxy.blogspot.com/2012/09/ifilter.html

Customizing Item Processing (Property Extraction, Offensive content filtering, XML item processing, etc.)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ff795821.aspx
Creating a Custom Property Extractor
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795797.aspx
Offensive Content Filter
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff395932.aspx
Pipeline Extensibility (Integrating an External Item Processing Component)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ff795801.aspx
Pipeline Extensibility Configuration Schema - CrawledProperty Element
Explains how to access "special" properties:


• url: The URL that is displayed when the item occurs in the query results.
• data: The binary content of the source document encoded in base64.
• body: The text extracted from the item by parsing the data property. The body is extracted by using an IFilter or other document parser.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795815.aspx
How to get access to ContentSource crawled property in Pipeline Extensibility
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fastsharepoint/thread/7ff4c3fc-a66d-4767-8458-b049a90c3a32
Pipeline Extensibility debugging
Two important tricks described in this post:

• How to add a sleep statement when in debug mode to allow you to attach to the process and do debugging directly in Visual Studio
• How to get the path to the AppData\LocalLow dynamically, in case it is located in a different path
http://techmikael.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-debug-and-log-fast-search.html
If you plan on calling a web service from Pipeline Extensibility, you must check this
http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/archive/2009/09/14/134820.aspx
Working with Multivalued Properties in FAST Search for SharePoint
http://searchunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/working-with-fast-search-for-sharepoint-and-multivalued-properties/
XMLMapper
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff395931.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795813.aspx
Creating a Custom Property Extractor
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795797.aspx
Debugging crawler parsing with ifilter2html.exe
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2010/11/02/debugging-the-crawler-parsing-in-fast-search-for-sharepoint-2010.aspx
How To Identify Crawled Properties and Their Values
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/how-to-identify-crawled-properties-and-their-values.aspx
Create a custom wordbreaker dictionary - SharePoint Search only
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263242.aspx
BCS
BCS Team YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/MOSSBCSTeam
Microsoft Business Connectivity Services Team Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bcs/
Searching External Data in SharePoint 2010 Using Business Connectivity Services (timestamp based crawl, changelog based crawl, associations, attachments, etc.)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericwhite/archive/2010/04/28/searching-external-data-in-sharepoint-2010-using-business-connectivity-services.aspx
Manage External Content Types (ECTs)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee524076.aspx
Creating .NET Assemblies That Aggregate Data from Multiple External Systems for Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint Server 2010
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728359.aspx
HOW TO: Create a Searchable SharePoint 2010 BDC .NET Assembly Connector Which Reads From a Flat File
http://www.toddbaginski.com/blog/archive/2009/11/05/how-to-create-a-searchable-sharepoint-2010-bdc-.net-assembly-connector-which-reads-from-a-flat-file.aspx
Accessing BLOB Data from External Systems Using Business Connectivity Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff634782(office.14).aspx
How to: Connect to an Oracle Database Using Business Connectivity Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ff464424(office.14).aspx
How to Set the URL for a BCS Connector item (and avoid the bdc3://)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/pl-PL/sharepoint2010programming/thread/61294f0b-0854-40a4-9a3a-72929d073429
How to pass the Security Descriptor (ACL) when crawling a database using BCS (+ example for .NET Assembly Connector)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010setup/thread/a57a6d19-35b7-431b-8f97-764ac655e89f
Full list of properties available for BDC Model file
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394525.aspx
SP Lotus Notes Connector
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff715346.aspx
FS4SP-specific Lotus Notes Connector
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff383321.aspx
Configuring Security with the FAST Search for SharePoint Server 2010 Lotus Notes Connector
http://sharepoint-sezai-moss-2007.blogspot.com/2011/01/configuring-security-with-fast-search.html
FS4SP Content API
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=0686333b-d47a-43e9-aa28-33f4a4b2b7ac
NO NEW VERSIONS, LIMITED SUPPORT: Note that this API is released as deprecated. The API is provided to enable users to integrate non-SharePoint content sources only with FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This API will not work with any future version of FAST Search Server for SharePoint. This API is provided "as is"; Microsoft may not provide support services for it.
How to: Exclude part of a page from being indexed by SharePoint Search
http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2011/01/26/how-to-exclude-part-of-a-page-from-being-indexed-by-sharepoint-search.aspx


Query Related

The Search Developer Story in SharePoint 2010 - Query Interfaces (Overview)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/enterprisesearch/archive/2009/11/20/the-search-developer-story-in-sharepoint-2010-query-interfaces.aspx
Querying FS4SP (Query Integration Overview, Query Refinement, Ranking and Sorting, Linguistics, Keyword Management, etc.)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394622.aspx
FQL – FAST Query Language
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394606.aspx
Keyword Syntax (SharePoint and FAST Search for SharePoint)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee558911.aspx
Microsoft.Search.Query Schema (Query Packet)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms563775.aspx
Walkthrough: Querying SharePoint Search from a Client Application (Query Web Service)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394650.aspx
Enterprise Search Query Architecture (Federation OM and Query OM)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee558338.aspx
Walkthrough: Creating a Basic Search Web Part Using the Query Object Model
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms551453.aspx
Walkthrough: Creating a Basic Search Web Part Using the Federation Object Model
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff407955.aspx
Running a query (FQL) from the command line (Query OM)
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/7428214f-f33b-4eec-ad13-53b2ab85529d
How to: Use the QueryManager class to query SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search
http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2010/08/15/how-to-use-the-querymanager-class-to-query-sharepoint-2010-enterprise-search.aspx
Querying Multiple Federated Locations in Enterprise Search with the QueryManager class
http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2010/08/25/querying-multiple-federated-locations-in-enterprise-search-with-the-querymanager-class.aspx
How to: Use the MOSS Enterprise Search KeywordQuery class
(post about SharePoint 2007, but I found it valid because it also covers how to add custom properties to the list of managed properties to be returned)
http://dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2008/02/19/how-to-use-the-moss-enterprise-search-keywordquery-class.aspx
Scopes in FS4SP
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jorgeni/archive/2010/02/26/search-scopes-in-fast-search-for-sharepoint-part-1.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jorgeni/archive/2010/03/11/search-scopes-in-fast-search-for-sharepoint-part-2.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff453895.aspx
Algorithmic Sorting (Geo-Search)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394654.aspx#ranking_sorting_algorithmichttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394654.aspx#ranking_sorting_algorithmichttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394654.aspx#ranking_sorting_algorithmic
Manually Adding Query Suggestions in SharePoint 2010
(just change to appropriate FAST Query SSA to have it working with FS4SP)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2010/02/17/manually-adding-query-suggestions-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx
Blocking unwanted Query Suggestions from FS4SP (or SP2010)
http://searchunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/blocking-unwanted-query-suggestions-from-fs4sp-or-sp2010/
Duplicate Removal
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff521593.aspx
User Contexts
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mberry/archive/2010/02/17/user-contexts-in-fast-search-for-sharepoint-part-1.aspx
User Contexts with Custom Properties
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2009/12/09/using-custom-properties-to-create-a-fast-search-for-sharepoint-2010-user-context.aspx
Refinement Panel XML Schema
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee819920.aspx
Query Refinement
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394639.aspx
How to: View Search Results XML Data
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms546985.aspx
XSLT
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xmp><xsl:copy-of select="*"/></xmp>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
Architecture Guidance for Building Federated Search Connectors
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc806169.aspx
Federated Search Connector Gallery for Enterprise Search
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/enterprisesearch/ff727944.aspx
FAST Search for Sharepoint MOSS 2010 Query Tool
Tool to query FAST for Sharepoint and Sharepoint 2010 Enterprise Search. It utilizes the search web services to run your queries so you can test your queries remotely from your local machine. It shows your results, allows you to refine your query (FAST), and page your results.
http://fastforsharepoint.codeplex.com/


Custom Web Parts

Walkthrough: Creating a Basic Search Web Part Using the Query Object Model
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms551453.aspx
Walkthrough: Creating a Basic Search Web Part Using the Federation Object Model
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff407955.aspx
Querying Multiple Federated Locations in Enterprise Search with the QueryManager class
http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2010/08/25/querying-multiple-federated-locations-in-enterprise-search-with-the-querymanager-class.aspx
Tag Cloud Web Part
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arnts/archive/2010/02/10/walkthrough-create-a-simple-tag-cloud-web-part-based-on-search-results.aspx
FS42P + Refiners + Bing Maps
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arnts/archive/2010/03/09/mashup-your-enterprise-search-results-in-sharepoint-2010-using-refiners-and-bing-maps.aspx
Visual Refiners
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arnts/archive/2010/03/03/visualize-your-enterprise-search-results-and-add-visual-navigation.aspx
Extending the Search Box Web Part
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stevennicolaou/archive/2010/06/24/extend-the-search-box-web-part-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx


Relevance / Ranking

Tune relevance (rank profile, keyword-driven rank, static rank, etc.)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff453902.aspx
Index Schema (rank-profile)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff464344.aspx#schema_rank_profile
Ranklog parser script
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/16448603-ab52-4e28-a1a4-4e4d9ddb4dd9
Using 2010 Ratings feature in Search
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2009/10/28/using-the-new-sharepoint-2010-ratings-feature-in-search.aspx
Evaluating and Customizing Search Relevance in SharePoint Server 2007
(Yes, this link is to SharePoint 2007, but it contains a LOT of good info related to the process of evaluating relevance, which should be helpful for both SP2010 and FS4SP)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb499682(office.12).aspx
Impact ranking using search scopes and XRANK
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/impact-ranking-using-search-scopes-and-xrank.aspx
FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Site Administration (walkthroughs on how to configure keywords, promotions/demotions, etc.)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/fast-search-server-help/CL101856396.aspx?CTT=97


Security

Configuring Security with the FAST Search for SharePoint Server 2010 Lotus Notes Connector
http://sharepoint-sezai-moss-2007.blogspot.com/2011/01/configuring-security-with-fast-search.html
How to pass the Security Descriptor (ACL) when crawling a database using BCS (+ example for .NET Assembly Connector)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010setup/thread/a57a6d19-35b7-431b-8f97-764ac655e89f
SharePoint Search Security Overview (including Custom Security Trimming)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff796226.aspx


Linguistics

Linguistics Features per Language (FAST Search for SharePoint)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793350.aspx
About Linguistics Features (tokenization, automatic language/encoding detection, stemming, spell checking, etc.) - FAST Search for SharePoint
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793354.aspx
Languages for word breakers and stemmers (SharePoint Server 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628972.aspx
Plan for multilingual sites (SharePoint Server 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262055.aspx


Windows PowerShell Examples

• Removing all content from the index for that collection
Clear-FASTSearchContentCollection sp

• Start Full Crawl
$crawl = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication "FAST Search Content SSA" -Identity "FAST Contoso"
$crawl.StartFullCrawl()
$crawl.CrawlStatus

• To get boosts
$boosts = $np.GetManagedPropertyBoosts()

• To delete boosts for "fileextension"
$boosts | Where-Object -FilterScript { if ($_.ManagedPropertyReference.Name -eq "fileextension") {$_.Delete();} }

• Add Query Suggestions
$searchapp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "FASTQuery"
New-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase
-SearchApplication $searchapp -Language En-Us -Type QuerySuggestionAlwaysSuggest -Name "SharePoint 2010"
Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase -SearchApplication $searchapp -Language En-Us -Type QuerySuggestionAlwaysSuggest -Identity "SharePoint 2010"
Get-Content .\QuerySuggestions.txt | Foreach-Object {
$q = New-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase -SearchApplication $searchapp -Language En-Us -Type QuerySuggestionAlwaysSuggest -Name $_
}
Start-SPTimerJob -Identity "prepare query suggestions"

• Block one of the query suggestions generated based on user clickthrough (to block offensive terms, for example)
New-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase -SearchApplication $searchapp -Language en-us -Type QuerySuggestionBlockList -Name red
Start-SPTimerJob -Identity "prepare query suggestions"

• To allow the query suggestion blocked in the previous step to be shown again
Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase -SearchApplication $searchapp -Language en-us -Type QuerySuggestionBlockList -Identity red
Start-SPTimerJob -Identity "prepare query suggestions"

• Get number of documents in a collection
$collection = Get-FASTSearchContentCollection -Name "sp"
$collection.DocumentCount

• Create collection
New-FASTSearchContentCollection -Name newscollection

• Create scope
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryScope -SearchApplication "FASTQuery" -Name MySimpleScope -Description "My Simple Scope" -DisplayInAdminUI 1 -ExtendedSearchFilter 'and(contentsource:"FAST Contoso", title:sharepoint)'

• Define User Context properties available
$props = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "FASTQuery" -Identity "FASTSearchContextProperties"
$props.Value
Set-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "FASTQuery" -Identity "FASTSearchContextProperties" -Value "SPS-Location,SPS-Skills,Department"

• Get/Set Refinement information for a Managed Property (for example, to define a numeric refiner)
$price = Get-FASTSearchMetadataManagedProperty -Name price
$pricerefiner = $price.GetRefinerConfiguration()
$pricerefiner.Intervals = 5
$price.SetRefinerConfiguration($pricerefiner)

• List all available PowerShell aliases
gal

• Search for a Crawled Property starting with something
Get-FASTSearchMetadataCrawledProperty | where { $_.Name -match "taxid*" }

• Query from PowerShell
$site = Get-SPSite “http://intranet.contoso.com”
$kq = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.KeywordQuery $site
$kq.ResultTypes = [Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RelevantResults
$kq.RowLimit = 10
$kq.EnableFQL = 1
$kq.QueryText = “ENTER YOUR FQL HERE”
$resultTableColl = $kq.Execute()
Write-Host Total hits: $resultTableColl[1].TotalRows
$relResultTable = $resultTableColl.Item([Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RelevantResults)
$relDataTable = $relResultTable.Table
$relDataTable | Format-Table -AutoSize -Property Url, Title

• Getting Results + Refiners back through PowerShell
$siteurl = "http://SiteURL/sites/fast/"
$query = "wineterms:wine"
$refiner = "wineterms"
$managedPropertyName = "wineterms"
$site = new-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite $siteUrl
$kq = new-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.KeywordQuery $site
$kq.ResultsProvider = [Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.SearchProvider]::FASTSearch
$kq.QueryText = $query
$kq.RowLimit = 1
$kq.ResultTypes = [Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RelevantResults -bor [Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RefinementResults
$kq.Refiners = $refiner
$rtc = $kq.Execute()
Write-Host ""
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Search Result data"
Write-Host ""
Write-Host "Backend time :" $rtc.DatabaseTime "ms"
Write-Host "Elapsed time :" $rtc.ElapsedTime "ms"
Write-Host "Query terms :" $rtc.QueryTerms
if ($rtc.Exists([Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RelevantResults))
{
$crt = $rtc.Item([Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RelevantResults)
$cdt = $crt.Table
Write-Host "Results returned :" $crt.Table.Rows.Count
Write-Host "Results total :" $crt.TotalRows
Write-Host ""
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Managed Property Value"
$cdt.Rows | Format-Table -autosize -property $managedPropertyName
}
if ($rtc.Exists([Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RefinementResults))
{
$rrt = $rtc.Item([Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.ResultType]::RefinementResults)
$rdt = $rrt.Table
Write-Host ""
if($rdt.Rows.Count -gt 0)
{
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Refinements"
$rdt.Rows | Format-Table -autosize -property RefinerName, RefinementName, RefinementToken, RefinementCount
}
else
{
write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "No refinements found for refiner " $refiner
}
}