We went code complete on the Unified Search web service at the end of March and now we are moving forward full force on a SilverLight User Interface layer. 

 The goal of this project is to bring the search results from various sites that relate to the Microsoft Partner Program into a single location.  This should eliminate the need for partners to travel from one site to another to locate the key information that they need to run their business. 

Instead of moving all the information to a single uber-index, we found that it was quicker and more efficient to federate the various indexes through a single web service.  During the initial research phase, we discovered the partners were going to several large sites (MSDN, Technet, Partner Portal to name a few) to retrieve information--Re-indexing these sites would be redundant and impractical. 

A separate hurtle that we faced combining these sites is the issue of separate search engines serving the information.  For example, MSDN and Technet use the Live.com search to index that content and the Partner Portal uses Sharepoint Enterprise Search to index content.  While bringing these indexes together proved challenging, manipulating the initial query and call each index separately is showing positive results.

I'm looking forward to the design phase.