Overview - Working with Distributed Indexes

Administrators can configure Voyage to work with multiple indexes, multiple instances or a combination of both.

Indexing Options

There are several ways to incorporate multiple indexes in a Voyager search. You can:

• Merge separate indexes into a single, master index
• Replicate indexes in a master-slave model
• Configure multiple Voyager instances in a Federated model, where a central, Federated index draws information from separate satellite indexes

Each of these options is described below.

Merging Indexes

In this case, multiple indexes are merged into a single central index. Merging indexes requires connectivity between remote machines and the central instance, but can easily be scheduled and managed.

See Migrating Your Voyager Index for more information.

Replicating Indexes

Voyager supports replication of indexes in a master-slave model to improve reliability, fault tolerance, and accessibility.  There is a one-to-many relationship between the master and its slaves.

Index Replication provides:

• High availability - no loss of service through hardware failure or configuration changes
• Increased Performance - processing load is shared across many machines, supporting more queries with faster results

• See Configuring Index Replication for more information.

Federated Indexes

In this case, a central, federated index draws information from indexes of satellite Voyager instances. Users can effectively search multiple Voyager instances with a single query.

• See Configuring Federated Searches for more information.